Quesnel residents can finally get an alternate truck route, but first they have to show up.
Mayor Bob Simpson says it is vital that people come to their open house today between 3 and 7 o’clock at the Seniors Centre.
He says for 47 years the community and surrounding area has been talking about the need to get truck traffic out of the downtown core and to stop dangerous goods from going by the hospital, and now is their chance…
“So for 47 years we’ve been having the conversation, now we have the opportunity to actually lock in a route, get the provincial government to actually commit to that route, go to next stage planning and potentially three or four years from now actually see something begin to be built.”
Simpson says they already have Ministry support…
“The Ministry of Transportation team is supporting this project, in part because the two bridges over the Quesnel River and the railway track need to be replaced anyway. So if they are replaced as part of an interconnector project, we actually kill two birds with one stone and we get the re-routing of the truck traffic.”
But Simpson says if people don’t support it, then the Ministry will simply build two new bridges and the truck traffic will remain in the downtown core for the next 50 years.
He says today’s meeting is on a drop-in basis so people don’t have to commit to the whole four hours, they can drop in anytime.
And he says they can also take a look at some other safety proposals for the Racing Road/Hydraulic Road area.
Simpson says the window to show support is very short though, as it ends on February 21st.
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