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Winter road conditions in the South Cariboo

A letter to the editor by Bill Hamilton
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To the editor:

As a more than 45 year resident of 100 Mile House and area, I have an observation in regards to the “road maintenance” we are experiencing this winter. Without a doubt, we are seeing the poorest performance in my entire 45 winters I have lived here. Prior to my retirement, I worked for B.C. Telephone (now Telus) as a serviceman.

I drove daily the highways and back roads of our area. I have never until this year felt that road conditions and not weather were responsible for threats to public safety.

The present contractor saw fit to address most side roads with equipment that was better suited to plowing driveways or parking lots (a flat deck 4x4 with a blade on it and a later added small sand hopper) this created a situation where roads were narrowly plowed and an ice buildup was found along the right edge of each lane.

Upon later addressing this situation with more suitable equipment, we are still left with a 3" to 6" ice ridge at that narrower initial plowing. While this tactic was probably very profitable for the contractor’s bottom line it does not address the far more urgent issue of public safety. I just returned from a trip to Kelowna and was dismayed to see the sharp contrast in road conditions from 83 mile north to those to the south including the road through Logan Lake to Merritt and the Coquihalla Connector and my return through Vernon, Falkland, Kamloops and Cache Creek. These conditions must be addressed by both the Ministry of Highways and the contractor Interior Roads publicly, and if the needed improvement cannot be guaranteed a new contractor should be put in place.

Bill Hamilton

108 Mile Ranch