The Operations Manager with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure in Quesnel says the alternate road for Buckridge residents, cut off by the washouts on West Fraser Road, is safe for travel.
Brad Moores says they’ve spent approximately a million dollars on it, including lowering the speed limit to make it safer…
“We installed about a hundred signs altogether, we did base stabilization along the entire route, 44 kilometers of Webster and Garner Road. We brushed the entire route to get the brush back, we did ditching and culverts and base repairs to try and stabilize the base and especially the ditching for spring freshet, we graveled and used over 10 thousand cubic meters on the road, so we did quite a bit of work this summer.”
Moores says it will be maintained throughout the winter and then they’ll see if more work is needed in the spring.
As for a long term solution, Moores says a Ministry team is developing potential options…
“We have a highway designer throwing lines down and those are going to be reviewed by the geotechnical people. Hydrology has to be done and we’ve said that before, but that is currently what we’re doing right now, we have to look at all the options and start saying this option is not going to work for this reason. There is going to be a meeting with the team early next month and then we’ll go back to the public and say these are the options we looked at, these are the preferred options, and that is going to happen early in 2019.
Moores says he believes there will be seven options, six to build a new road, and the option of re-building the current one.
He says three of the options were looked at back in 1977.
Moores says they will also have cost estimates for all of the options.
He says he understands that the time frame may not match what the residents out there would like, but he says they have to do things right…
“There is no sense trying to do something and it failing, and not only have we spent money but we haven’t served the public very well at that same time, so we’re taking the time to do it right and as soon as we know the options and the preferred options, we’ll be back to the people.”