WHEREAS the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure is responsible for maintaining provincial highways; AND WHEREAS the cumulative effects of climate change has caused many highways to become severely degraded, creating unsafe traveling conditions: Therefore be it resolved that the Province of British Columbia provide additional funding to address the cumulative effects of climate change on highways.
Ministry of Transportation Infrastructure The safety of our highways is a priority for the Province. The Ministry is committed to ensuring provincial highways and side roads are safe and will support mobility throughout the province. Whether it be climate change, economic growth or any other pressure on our infrastructure, we are committed to ensuring our highways are funded appropriately to ensure the roads stay open, remain safe and are in good operating condition. To support this, the Ministry recently released its 10 year transportation plan; B.C. On the Move. In this plan, the Ministry has increased investment in bridge rehabilitation and replacement by 50 to 180M over 3 years and increased investment in side roads by 33 to 270M over 3 years among many other commitments. In all, the plan commits to 890 million to ensure our Highways and Side Roads remain in good condition. The Ministry is a leader in Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation, partnering with Engineers Canada and the Pacific Climate Impacts Consortium at the University of Victoria to obtain climate projections. This has allowed evaluation of the potential vulnerability of transportation infrastructure in BC to climate changes. The Ministry is an active participant on Engineers Canadas Public Infrastructure Engineering Vulnerability Committee PIEVC and our Chief Engineer is Chair of PIEVCs Expert Working Group on Roads and Related Structures. The Ministry has developed directives, practices and is using these climate forecasting models and tools to ensure new and rehabilitated infrastructure is able to respond to changing climate conditions over time. The Ministry requires all new transportation projects to: - Consider climate change and extreme weather events - Take into account climate change and extreme weather event projections and analyses, where feasible - Undertake vulnerability analysis for the design life of components - Develop practical and affordable project design criteria which takes adaptation to climate change into account This will ensure transportation infrastructure in the Province of British Columbia continues to be resilient, reliable, effective and efficient into the future.