Quesnel, B.C.-   Council for the City of Quesnel is turning up the heat on the Ministry of Transportation, asking that the transportation planning promised in the ten year plan for the province, take place.

At issue is the traffic on highway 97 through the core of the community. “It’s been a long standing issue as anyone who has been to Quesnel knows” says Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson, “It impacts the safety in the downtown core, it’s a congestion issue and it’s an air quality issue because during the peak hauling season, the logging truck traffic coming from everywhere has to come along our Front Street, and the stop start there drops the dust off the trucks and adds to our air quality issues.”

While there have been some traffic flow changes, Simpson says those changes have led to other issues of pedestrian safety and safety at interchanges between Quesnel’s city roads and the highway. Widening the current highway won’t resolve the problems says Simpson “even if they could expand to four lanes, it doesn’t take away the other issues, the safety issues, the air quality issues, the toxic goods and dangerous goods going right past our hospital and a senior’s complex.”

Choosing an alternate route has been part of the problem to resolving the issue adds Simpson who says they type of bypass remains undefined ” Is it an alternate truck route, is it a bypass, where do you put it, is it an east-west connector with respect to the log truck traffic, or is it a north south connector with respect to the transportation of dangerous goods?”   He says the community itself has not done a good job of resolving the issue of defining the route, it’s location or the type of traffic that causes the most concern.

There have been plenty of ideas over the years, with four different north -south routes suggested and an east-west route that would include a second crossing of the Fraser River.

So, Council for Quesnel has the Mayor writing a letter to the Minister of Transportation asking for $300 thousand dollars to engage in a comprehensive planning exercise with the Ministry Staff “We are asking for an expedited response, and we’re asking for a straight up yes or no, I am intimating in the letter that if it’s a no, then we will decide what our next steps are to highlight this issue at a much higher level.”