Public bus for Highway of Tears not mentioned in final report
Northern leaders say status quo is ‘ inadequate’
Community leaders along B. C.’ s notorious Highway of Tears were frustrated to see the province release its final report on the Missing Women Inquiry without any mention of urgently needed public shuttle buses.
Two years ago, Missing Women Commissioner Wally Oppal urged the province to immediately commit to developing a “safer travel option” for people living along Highway 16, where 18 women have been murdered or gone missing in recent decades.
The B. C. government on Thursday released its final report in response to Oppal’s 56 recommendations, boasting that it has taken action on 75 per cent of them.
“The themes are compensation for the children, support for vulnerable women, improved response to missing persons, and improvements to policing. Some of the work has been completed, while some continues to be underway,” Attorney General Suzanne Anton said in an interview.
While improving transportation on Highway 16 gets a full page in
There’s a patchwork of services, there’s a lack of consistency and there are a lot of communities that aren’t served adequately, if at all. TAYLOR BACHRACH SMITHERS MAYOR
the report, the measures listed refer to funding that has been in place for years and new services that some say are inadequate in a region where many people are forced to resort to hitchhiking.
Smithers Mayor Taylor Bachrach said he was deeply disappointed that the province hasn’t committed to a public bus to connect towns and cities along the highway.
“It’s overwhelmingly frustrating. I have not been able to elicit a recognition that the status quo — when it comes to public passenger transportation in the North — is inadequate,” he said.
“Today’s announcement does very little to improve the situation.”
The government report lists an existing annual commitment of $ 1.5 million to provide local bus services through costsharing agreements between BC Transit and municipal governments and First Nations. Those existing systems just aren’t enough, according to Bachrach.
“There’s a patchwork of services, there’s a lack of consistency and there are a lot of communities that aren’t served adequately, if at all,” he said.
The report also vaunts the creation of a new website that compiles information about the current transportation options in the region.
Carrier Sekani Tribal Council Chief Terry Teegee has his doubts about how useful the website will be. He pointed out that many members of his community don’t have regular access to the Internet.
“How is that going to be helpful to people on the ground?” he asked. “And is that something we should be boasting about? I think anybody nowadays could put that together — a website with a bunch of links.”
He was also doubtful about another measure in the report — a one- time funding injection of $ 75,000 to the Carrier Sekani Family Services to increase access to driver education and licensing programs.
The report does acknowledge there is still more work to be done, but the Ministry of Transportation said in an email that any expansion of the current transit system will have to come at the direction of local governments.
Anton said that the remaining recommendations made by Oppal in his 2012 report are “not as important” as those that the province has already followed through on.
“Some of them ask for research projects. But some aren’t terribly relevant now. And some of them are obsolete. We are into action, not research,” she said.
“Other recommendations we won’t pursue are being addressed through work currently underway in other areas of the ministry.”
The Missing Women Commission Inquiry headed by Oppal was formed to examine the serial murders of Robert Pickton in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.