Salt Spring residents give thumbs down to hitchhiking crackdown
Salt Spring Island residents are in a spat with members of their local RCMP detachment who they say are cracking down on a key component of their island culture — hitchhiking.
For decades, locals have relied on the kindness of one another to get from place to place on the large island.
So common is hitchhiking that in one location, rather than using their thumbs, prospective riders have taken to using handmade wooden signs painted with destination names to flag passing drivers.
That popular hitchhiking hub is in Ganges Harbour, on the south end of town, and it’s something residents say police and the provincial Ministry of Transportation want to shut down with a physical barrier and a ticket-writing campaign.
It isn’t clear whether the Ministry of Transportation or the Mounties sparked the concern, and neither claimed that responsibility Monday. A call to the local RCMP sergeant went unreturned.
Cpl. Tammy Douglas, a spokeswoman for the island district, said staff at the Ministry of Transportation had visited the island several times to discuss road safety, particularly during the busier summer months.
“The issue is not so much with picking up hitchhikers, rather, some safety concerns about where the vehicles are stopping to pick up hitchhikers,” Douglas said. But she added that infrastructure changes are made by the province.
Ministry staff declined to offer a statement — as provincial agencies have tended to do since before the election — and suggested Postmedia News try the RCMP again.
Scores of locals gathered Monday afternoon at the hitchhiking site to protest the feared change. Among them was Hannah Brown, a 76-year-old islander and an organizer of the protest.
“I’m stressed. You know how stressed I am? I’m playing Frank Sinatra,” Brown said with a laugh when she was reached for comment.
Brown said she had tried very nicely to negotiate a compromise, “because I’m an old teacher and I know you get more with honey than vinegar” with the local police, but all they would say is that hitchhiking is illegal and subject to a $109 fine.
“We have new police on the island who don’t understand community policing,” Brown said. “They are adamant that they are going to start (fining people).”
And that’s not just at the Ganges Harbour site, but island-wide, Brown said.
“If you don’t have a car, or if you’re visiting, to get to places is really hard. You could walk for hours and so we pick up people. It’s a community spirit thing,” she said.
It’s also a Gulf Island thing more broadly, as Adam Olsen, the newly elected Green party MLA for Saanich North and the Islands, noted.
“If you look at all the Gulf Islands … they have car stops. It’s organized hitchhiking. That’s how people got around the islands and it’s worked very, very well,” he said, when reached in Vancouver.
Picking up hitchhikers on Salt Spring is something Olsen said he has done himself, and even as recently as during the election period. Olsen is the intended recipient of an online petition over the matter that had received more than 800 signatures by Monday afternoon. Petitioners have asked Olsen to help them save “the cultural tradition of ride-sharing on Salt Spring.”
Olsen said he had sent his constituency assistant to the island to speak to residents this week, and added that he also wanted to speak with staff at the Ministry of Transportation.
Many of those who have commented on the petition say they hitchhike or pick people up because it’s more environmentally friendly than everyone owning their own car and driving. Others say they thumb their way around the island because buses are infrequent and don’t travel everywhere.
Section 182 of B.C.’s Motor Vehicle Act states: “A person must not be on a roadway to solicit a ride … from an occupant of a vehicle.” A roadway is defined as “the portion of the highway that is improved, designed or ordinarily used for vehicular traffic, but does not include the shoulder.”