LOCAL LEADERS WANT HIGHWAY EXPANSION CASH SPENT ELSEWHERE
Posted on 23 March 2010 by admin
OSOYOOS TIMES-March 24, 2010
By Paul Everest - Osoyoos Times
Several local leaders who attended an open house on the planned expansion of Hwy. 97 north of Osoyoos expressed concerns about the amount of money being spent on the project.
The provincial Transportation Ministry hosted an information session at the Osoyoos Legion on March 17 focused on the proposal to build four new lanes between Graveyard Hill and Dead Man’s Lake.
Although plans to improve traffic flow on the highway between Osoyoos and Oliver have been in the works for a number of years, a renewed commitment to provide safer passing opportunities for motorists was announced by the province in November when the federal and provincial governments pledged $8 million towards the project.
Right now the concept is to create a new, four-lane stretch of highway roughly 2.3 kilometres in length while turning the existing roadway into a frontage road.
Boundary-Similkameen MLA John Slater has said the main goal of the project is to make the corridor safer by providing separate turning lanes onto the frontage road and keeping farm equipment and other vehicles from properties bordering the highway from entering and exiting the highway at unsafe accesses.
This stretch of road was chosen, Slater said, because there are no highway accesses on the east side of the road and therefore no frontage road would be necessary on that side of Hwy. 97.
The most recent plans include a turnoff between two fruit stands on the west side of the road, an eastbound turnoff at Road 22 and a four-way intersection at 202 Avenue.
The turnoff between the fruit stands was recently incorporated into the highway expansion plans to address the concerns of the stands’ owners who argued that motorists would bypass their businesses if new lanes were built.
Mark Pendergraft, the Regional District Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) director for rural Area A, said he had mixed emotions about the highway expansion plan.
He said it was an “awful lot of money to put towards” an effort to get motorists where they’re going 15 to 20 seconds faster and added that the cash could have been used for other needs in the area.
Pendergraft also said, however, that he was happy that the concerns of the fruit stand owners were addressed in the most recent plans.
Osoyoos Mayor Stu Wells said he feels the project could be “creating accident situations rather than solving one,” since people will have to merge back into two lanes at a dangerous corner at the north end of the corridor near Dead Man’s Lake and on a stretch that is notorious for black ice conditions at the south end.
He added that “six lanes of asphalt with dividers and barriers is an awful large footprint for a greenbelt area” and could alter the character of the South Okanagan area.
The $8 million, Wells said, could be spent on an aquatic centre shared by Osoyoos and Oliver or on upgrading local hospitals.
The biggest problem with the highway expansion plan, Wells said, is the trails component.
The ministry has pledged to build a two-metre-wide trail next to the shoulder of the road on the east side of the highway and leave space along the rest of the corridor for the trail to be expanded down the road.
Wells said it’s “completely unacceptable” that the ministry won’t commit to building a trail the full distance of the corridor since hiking and biking trails could help with tourism efforts in the area.
“Why on earth, when they are there with the equipment and the fill, would they not create that trail?” he said.
Allan Patton, rural director for Area C (Oliver) and chair of the Okanagan-Similkameen Airshed Coalition, said he was concerned the expansion project will eventually lead to the construction of four lanes from Penticton to the U.S. border, something that would “destroy” downtown Oliver.
He said the $8 million committed to the project could go towards purchasing 16 buses and improving public transit in the South Okanagan.
“We should be talking about ways to reduce traffic,” he said, adding that the coalition is seeking the support of the ministry for more public transit and less highway expansion projects.
Patton and Wells also said the corridor of Hwy. 97 in question is not unsafe and the crash rate there is actually below the provincial average.
Tom Freeman, a project development manager with the Transportation Ministry, said the accident rate for the Dead Man’s Lake corridor is 0.54 accidents per million vehicle kilometres while the provincial average is 0.61.
According to Transportation Ministry statistics, there were 40 collisions between 1999 and 2008 on the stretch of Hwy. 97 from the north end of Osoyoos Lake to Dead Man’s Lake, including one fatality, 13 injuries and 26 cases of property damage.
The fatal crash happened on Oct. 15, 2006 at 6:15 p.m., roughly 90 metres south of 204th Avenue.
Freeman said this stretch of road “wasn’t showing up as a collision-prone location,” but added that the expansion plan could still reduce the collision rate by 35 per cent.
Freeman said, however, that the collision rate for the highway just north and just south of where the expansion would happen is 0.85 accidents per million vehicle kilometres which is above the provincial average.
He added that the purpose of the passing lane is not just to reduce collisions, but to relieve congestion.
Ministry personnel also used the open house as an opportunity to provide the public with information about what environmental effects the expansion project will have.
An environmental assessment carried out by the province in 2005 indicated that tiger salamanders and Great Basin spadefoot toads were present in wetlands near the intersection of Hwy. 97 and Road 22.
Environmental coordinators working with the Transportation Ministry said the ministry is taking a “cautious approach” when it comes to the wetlands.
New, larger wetlands will be created away from the intersection and there will be strict policies on where construction machines can go in relation to environmentally sensitive areas.
The ministry’s environmental coordinators said machines will be cleaned to prevent invasive species from entering the wetlands, multiple spill-cleanup kits will be placed at the construction site and equipment will be checked daily for leaks.
Work on the expansion project could begin this spring.
news@osoyoostimes.com
Just build the highway already. What would be nice is a four lane highway from the US Border to Penticton. Some of us actually want to travel from one place to the next and we’re not all on vacation continually!! And we’ve seen the scenery before!
Mr. Patton’s idea of more busses and public transit is just plain ridiculous! The area is trying to promote tourism and encouraging people to move here–so, how does he expect the tourists to come?? In busses? No, they arrive in their own vehicles, which include motorhomes, campers, trailers, boats, etc.
The orchards, vineyards, etc, were allowed to destroy the beautiful, natural desert and now they’re all concerned about those orchards?! Who cares, just build the road already and then do something about the constant smoke that we have to choke on day after day! I’m not encouraging any of my friends to visit here until the smoke issue is dealt with–in this 21st century, that is just plain embarrassing! Saying that Canada has clean air is an absolute joke!
Who makes these decisions? Seems to me like another govt project thought up by someone who really has no idea of what the taxpayer really wants or needs. Get your priorities straight Mr. Slater. $8,000,000.00 would go a long way if channeled into healthcare or ambulance services and would benefit every one of us in the oliver/osoyoos area. Hats off to Wells & Patton in this instance.
Rick D
The taxpayers want a four lane road (100 km/hr) from Osoyoos to Penticton! We are getting tired of this Mickey Mouse excuse for a road where people drive like they’re on vacation!!
What a bunch of fools. Maybe we should never have built a highway in the first place! Look at the money we would have saved!! A four lane 100km/m highway should be built for the same reason a two lane 80km/h highway was built in the 1930s. There are more people using the highway, the area is growing, and congestion costs all of us. 99% of the drivers in the area have no interest in being “caught up in the beauty of the Okanagan”. They just want to get home for God sakes so they can have dinner. Just get building.
Look at the picture - if a large highway were to be built from the south to the north that would be a different story. With only a 2km section being 4-laned the argument of getting home on time is easily refuted. To sink $8M into a project that only results in the rearrangment of traffic while the southern and northern sections of that same highway remain a bottleneck is utterly useless. With limited resources, the $8M would do a far greater benefit elsewhere.
Once this project (if it goes ahead) is completed - it is almost certain that none of us will see any other four-laning projects along the Oliver-Osoyoos corridor within the next decade - so the sinking of $8M into this section of highway will result in a net benefit of nil. Instead of a piece-meal improvement to the highways there needs to be a solid long-term expansion plan to accomodate traffic, and the existing infrastructure as it exists. The Okanagan has a long-standing history of being a relaxing region - not the Interstate grey top environment that some are craving. It is a green belt region - and a very unique region at that.
For those of you that have no interest being “caught up in the beauty of the Okanagan” - your personal opinion on life (and that’s exactly what that is) has no bearing on upon the reasons for completing the project.
The data clearly demonstrates (as shown in this article) that the funds would be better utilized in other areas where safety is a concern - especially on the corners that upon that highway claim lives each year (i.e. Graveyard Hill). If safety was the real concern the project would have been implemented in that manner.
TO THE STAFF OF THE OSOYOOS TIMES .WHAT MAKES YOU THINK WELLS AND PATTON ARE LEADERS.WELLS FOR ONE IS A ONE TERM MAYOR.PATTON IS FROM OLIVER AND WILL PROBABLY GET BACK AND DEVISTATE THE COMMUNITY A LITTLE MORE.AFTERALL THE NEWEST BUILDING IS THE SIKH TEMPLE.THIS MONEY IS FEDERAL INFASTRUCTURE MONEY AND WONT COME AROUND AGAIN.SLATER WILL NOT BE RE ELECTED AND COMRADE CAROL JAMES WILL BE THE NEXT PREMIER.REMEMBER IN THIS PROVINCE WE DONT ELECT A GOVERNMENT WE THROW ONE OUT.REMEMBER ROAD BUILDING FOR THE NDP IS PATCHING POTHOLES.
FOR THOSE OF YOU THAT THINK THE OFFICIAL STATS ARE CORRECT IN THIS AREA HERE ARE THE FATALITIES AS I REMEMBER THEM COMING SOUTH, MALE DIRECTOR OF THE DESERT CENTRE,UNKNOWN PARTY STRUCK POLE DEEASED,LOCAL MAN AND HIS PIT BULL IN THE DEADMANS LAKE,YOUNG LADY IN PRIVATE VEHICLE CHASING AMBULANCE,YOUNG FEMALE EMPLOYEE OF OSOYOS TIMES ON HER WAY TO WORK,CARPENTER ON HIS WAY HOME TO WILLOW BEACH,CAR ROLLOVER ON FIELDS CORNER YOUNG GIRL DECEASED. ONE HUNDRED YARDS SOUTH A YOUNG GIRL PERISHED AS THEY WERE PERSUED BY THE POLICE FOR GAS AND DASH AT HUSKY.THESE ARE ALL THAT I REMEMBER RECENTLY BUT THERE WERE OTHERS INCLUDING THE GREYHOUND BUS ROLLOVER BESIDES THE OLD ELLIS SIDING. I BET THESE NUMBERS PLAY HELL WITH THERE AVERAGES NOWPS FOR THE MOST PART IF YOU WANTED ME TO NAME NAMES I WOULD BE ABOUT 94 PERCENT RIGHT.IF THIS IS SAFE ROAD BY STATS I WOULD HATE TO SEE A DANGEROUS ROAD. BOB KNIGHT PS EVEN MY DAD PICKED OFF A POLE IN THIS STRETCH AND TURNED OUT THE LIGHTS IN OSOYOOS FOR FIVE HOURS.
i have been aware of this project for five years now sat in on the meeting all that time ago frist i now feel with the new changes the fruit stand owners have the access they should. come on people we need this road to provide not only a timely commute for people going to work built now the 4 lane will be more cost affective then waiting for later it will benifit everyone now and in the future as tourisum and commercial venturs this steach was proposed at 3 millon dollars 5 years ago now its 8 millon and as far as black ice goes is this the only part of the highway that gets black ice. build the road lets move ahead not in reverse i have heard many tourists complain about this problem