North Okanagan residents left with unsafe road conditions

The mix of snow and ice on some North Okanagan roads is causing major issues and for some, they’re having trouble even making it home.

Some residents near Lumby, B.C., are frustrated with the icy conditions and with what they say is a lack of road maintenance.

People who live along Trinity Valley Road are getting increasingly annoyed as the way up to their homes hasn’t been easy.

“It’s just ridiculous and they expect us to drive on it,” said Trinity Valley Road resident Garth Cannaday.

“There’s like a foot of hard-packed ice out on the road here because they plow it with the plow truck and they got no down pressure on the blades.”

1:51 Freezing rain prompts warning for Interior highways

Residents haven’t seen many snow plows along their road in the past few weeks and they say, it’s starting to become dangerous.

Brodde Baril’s sisters have both ended up in the ditch due to the slippery conditions.

“Going on the other side of the roads, sometimes you gotta cut a corner and that can be scary sometimes not seeing if there’s a vehicle or not. I try my best not to cut them but you can’t always help it,” said resident Brodde Baril.

Baril also raises concerns on how emergency vehicles would be able to travel down the road if they are not properly cleared.

1:45 Both the city of Kelowna and the RCMP are reminding drivers to drive with caution

The snow clearing along Trinity Valley Road is contracted by AIM Roads and they say higher-priority streets are cleaned first.

“We have all our resources out right now hitting all the side roads and they’re doing them by classification so we’re just trying to get to every road by classification right now,” said Kevin McDonnell, contract manager for AIM Roads.

In a statement to Global News, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says they continuously communicate with contractors to monitor the performance of the maintenance work.

“Where issues are noted, Ministry staff work with the contractor to ensure contributing factors are determined and rectified.”

“The ministry’s maintenance contractors are required to monitor and respond to changing conditions and deploy enough workers, equipment and material to get the job done.”

Trinity Valley Road residents have taken things into their own hands, clearing the road with their equipment but they hope to see changes soon.

“It’s sad, it’s pathetic and I don’t know what’s going on,” said Cannaday.

The ministry encourages anyone with safety concerns regarding road conditions to report them to AIM Roads.