Highway of Tears bus service to start in B.C.

Route runs through Hwy. 16 where women, girls have died

A partial bus service will begin on Monday, nearly a decade after residents asked for one, along a dangerous stretch of remote British Columbia roadway known as the Highway of Tears.

At least 18 women and girls have gone missing or have been found murdered along the highway that stretches from Prince Rupert on B.C.’s northwest coast to Prince George in the province’s interior. The highway winds by logging camps and northern B.C. First Nations, and without public transit, people often hitch-hike. A majority of the women lost along the road are indigenous, many of them teenage girls.

The new bus service will run six days a week, linking the communities of Smithers and Moricetown, about a 30-km stretch of the nearly 800-km highway.

The province is spending $4 million on the bus service, with the federal government kicking in $1 million — the money is going toward the buses, driver training, webcams and better shelters.

B.C. Minister of Aboriginal Relations and Reconciliation John Rustad acknowledges it has taken a long time to get the bus service rolling, but said that is due to geography and an effort to work with indigenous communities to make sure they have the safest service possible.

Rustad hopes to have a “comprehensive service” in place along the highway by the end of this summer.

“It is a lot of work that goes into this, but we are very close at being able to make additional announcements in the future,” he said.

In 2005, the provincial RCMP set up Project E-Pana to examine the unsolved murders of women and girls.

When they first launched, nine victims had gone missing or were found murdered along the highway from 1989 to 2006. A 2014 RCMP report concluded nearly 1,200 indigenous women and girls in Canada were murdered and missing, dating back several decades, though many believe the figure is much higher.