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Sea to Sky not just any highway, say RCMP, business leaders

Special designation needed to keep Hwy 99 safe
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Incidents like this head-on collision that bogged down traffic for hours could be prevented with a mountain highway designation. Photo by Maureen Provencal

By Vivian Moreau

Although Sea to Sky community leaders, police and residents are calling for tougher restrictions on motorists travelling Highway 99 without snow tires or chains, the area’s MLA is reluctant to introduce legislation that would designate the roadway as a mountain highway.

Local RCMP say there would be fewer foul-ups like the Dec. 15 gridlock that left hundreds of motorists stranded near Whistler and in which one motorist died of a heart attack if the province designated the highway as a mountain or winter highway.

Cpl. Scott Bowden is stationed at Squamish RCMP detachment and speaks for Sea to Sky traffic services, an RCMP division focused on improving highway safety. Bowden said a mountain or highway designation would mean the message not to travel in winter without snow tires could get to motorists before they set out on Highway 99. Staff at border crossings, travel agents, and proper signage would let motorists know that snow tires or chains would be required for travel from Vancouver to Whistler in winter months. Bowden said at present local RCMP don’t have the manpower for constant road checks to turn back poorly equipped vehicles during inclement weather.

“Someone can come on this highway today with all-season or just summer tires which would get them all the way to Whistler, but if the weather changes now they probably won’t go anywhere but in the ditch,” Bowden said.

But the Ministry of Transportation says mountain or winter highway designation does not exist within provincial legislation.

“It’s semantics,” said Transportation spokesperson Jeff Knight. “The question seems to be why don’t you put up a sign, make it mandatory (to have snow tires or chains), but there is no such thing as a mountain highway designation.”

Provincial legislation would have to be introduced and passed to implement such a designation. But local MLA Joan McIntyre is reluctant to support that, saying such a requirement could put a damper on tourism.

“If all of a sudden you tell people they have to have winter tires from October to April that’s going to cause people to go ‘oh yeah, well I’ll go somewhere else. I’m not going to bother to go to Whistler,’” she said.

Car rental agencies also do not support the idea of requiring vehicles to be equipped with snow tires or chains. National Car Rental says its fleet comes factory-equipped with all-season radials but it’s not the tires that cause traffic tie-ups, it’s the drivers.

“It’s the driving habits of people who think just because I have a SUV or snow tires I can do whatever I want and go as fast as I want,” said David Wong, operations manager for National’s Vancouver International Airport location. “All car rental companies across North America equip their cars from the manufacturer with all-season tires. It’s not an issue anywhere else except someone wants to make an issue of it here,” Wong said.

Tourism Whistler is a member the ICBC-driven Sea to Sky committee that meets twice a year and will meet again in April to discuss highway safety. The committee includes local police, First Nations, municipal engineers, community and business leaders. Whistler’s marketing arm says it will stand behind the committee’s recommendations.

“Tourism Whistler will support the expert recommendations of those involved directly in overseeing safety along the highway,” spokesperson Breton Murphy said. “Whether that means a mountain highway designation or another approach to ensuring vehicles are equipped to handle our winter highway conditions, our role is going to be to continue communicating relevant information to our visitors.”

Bruce Beaudry travels from his Vancouver home to a Whistler condo on a regular basis. On Dec. 15 he and a companion spent 12 hours stuck in traffic on Highway 99, about 20 km south of Whistler. He says the benefits of enforcing proper equipment outweigh the possible negatives.

“It may be that tourism will go down if motorists have to have chains on but it certainly will be safer,” Beaudry said. “So I’m for it.”

Whistler-Blackcomb’s head of operations says there is an economic impact when visitors get stuck in highway traffic or turn around and head back to Vancouver.

“I can tell you that when that happens… it costs this resort, ourselves and others here, hundreds of thousands of dollars a day,” Doug Forseth said.

A proposal put forth by an ad hoc committee to the province five years ago for mountain highway designation never went anywhere, Forseth said, and interest in the subject waned after several years of little snow at lower elevations. Highway safety has re-surfaced as a result of recent events, like the Dec. 15 and Jan. 5 snowstorms that caused traffic delays and in which one motorist died.

“This is a process (mountain highway status) that is not new,” Forseth said. “This is happening everywhere in the world where we have mountains and snow… I’m not sure why it’s not happening here because we are in the mountain resort business, we do have snow on our highways, and people need to be prepared when they come.”