North Shore wants crashes cleared faster
The awful congestion on and around the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge has been a topic of daily discussion among residents of the North Shore for the past few years.
“The concern over traffic, any kind of backup from the Cassiar Connector to the Lonsdale corridor, is conversation in virtually every single home,” said Richard Walton, mayor of the district of North Vancouver.
The district and city are calling on the province to relieve congestion on the bridge and traffic delays elsewhere by changing the Motor Vehicle Act so that minor collisions may be cleared from highways, bridges and tunnels faster.
Their proposals will be considered in a resolution at next week’s Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in Vancouver. The resolution says traffic volume is steadily increasing on provincial highways and minor collisions are frequent, and cause “excessive traveller delay, significant local and regional economic loss and loss of mobility on adjacent local road networks.”
There are three to four collisions a week on the Ironworkers Memorial Bridge, causing traffic to stop or crawl on the highway and clogging feeder routes.
Walton said the aim of the resolution is not to compromise safety — if there is any chance someone might be injured, the incident would be dealt with in the usual way.
“We’re really focusing on the minor accidents — the fenderbenders, the stalls,” said District of North Vancouver project manager Erin Moxon. “Let’s get those cleared up more quickly.”
The resolution says the Motor Vehicle Act should be changed to allow maintenance contractors, such as Mainroad Contracting, to authorize the removal of stalled or damaged vehicles from the roads. Currently, only police have this power.
Police who attend collisions in which damages are estimated to be more than $1,000 are required to conduct an investigation that involves completing a collision reporting form only they can fill out.
The municipalities would like to see the act changed so police don’t have to fill out the form unless damage is more than $10,000, and so the form can be filled out by fire rescue personnel for minor incidents. It’s expected these changes would also allow vehicles with minor damage to be removed from the roadway faster.
“I know this would have a huge influence here,” Walton said.
“The level of frustration in this community is extremely high.”
He said the changes could benefit people across the province, but acknowledged they would have the most impact in the Lower Mainland.
“We want to make sure the ministry and RCMP are better prepared to handle these accidents,” said Darrell Mussatto, mayor of the city of North Vancouver. “Any little delay adds to the congestion.”
Const. Melissa Wutke, a spokeswoman for RCMP E Division traffic services, was unable to comment on the resolution but said in general that “we understand the frustration of traffic backups and work to get roads open and traffic flowing as expeditiously as possible.”
One concern, raised by the Insurance Corp. of B.C., is how the changes could affect data gathering.
ICBC spokeswoman Joanna Linsangan said the corporation relies on information from police reports to determine trends and shape their programs.
“While we are open to discussing increasing the threshold, we do know that any kind of change would impact the kind of data ICBC would receive. How big or small the impact we don’t know — it’s kind of early days,” she said.
If the resolution is passed, the ICBC would still have an opportunity to share concerns and comments with the Ministry of Transportation.
Ian Tootill, a co-founder of the motorist advocacy organization SENSE B.C., called the resolution “a good start,” but said it’s a BandAid solution to a greater problem: Road users, emergency services and those responsible for policy are not recognizing the importance of properly using the transportation system.
“We get crashes all the time around the Lower Mainland that cause catastrophic traffic jams. They cause people to be late for things, said Tootill.
“They cost businesses money. There’s a domino effect when people don’t get to where they need to go.
“Thank God North Vancouver has started the ball rolling. I hope this gets somewhere.”
We’re really focusing on the minor accidents — the fender-benders, the stalls.