NDP MPP Guy Bourgouin wants to force the province to improve maintenance standards and make winter driving safer on northern Ontario’s main Highways 11 and 17.
He's reintroduced his private member’s bill that would make it the law that the province must clear the roads within eight hours of a snowfall.
A similar bill two years ago failed to pass.
See: Northern PCs bail on highway safety bill vote
“Northerners have been waiting long enough," said Bourgouin in a virtual news conference today. "Doug Ford should have acted on my bill two years ago to clear our highways during the winter and make it safer for northern families. Ford’s refusal to act means northern drivers keep risking their lives on poorly maintained routes in the winter.
“With this bill we can prevent highway tragedies in Northern Ontario by making our highways safer. Northern drivers and their families deserve nothing less than to know that their roads are safe during our long winter months.”
See:NDP blasts Conservatives over northern winter road safety
To achieve the eight hour standard, the NDP bill would classify northern highways the same as all 400 series highways that have the strictest snow removal requirements according to Bourgouin.
The Ministry of Transportation’s snow removal classification standards depends on the type of highway and traffic volumes, not on climate or vehicle size and weight. Bourgouin’s bill would bump up highways 11 and 17 to Class 1 in all of their sections, whether two or four-lane and eliminate vehicular traffic specification.
"Highways 11 and 17 are the Trans-Canada Highway link across Ontario and the rest of Canada," added Mark Andrews, former OPP North East Region Traffic Commander. "
Andrews says the environmental disasters in British Columbia have illustrated the fragility of the transportation corridors across this country.
"Ontario needs to take notice and do everything now to prevent the Trans Canada link from being severed for any duration. I have stood on Highways 17 and 11 dealing with crashes due to weather events, I have closed those highways due to weather events. Upon the closure the question of ‘How long will the closures be?’ was non-stop. The impact to our province and country, in human lives and the economy is too high to continue to treat these highways as simple secondary two-lane systems."
“Northern highways are no longer safe and road closures occur more often than before," stated Mario Villeneuve, 2nd Vice-President of Ontario Road Builders Association. "Commercial traffic has drastically increased on the Highway 11 corridor and our road infrastructure and maintenance need to be adapted to better serve all northern communities and businesses.”
