WHEREAS many section of highways throughout British Columbia are considered critical accident zones; AND WHEREAS these critical accident zones have serious impacts on the health and safety of the travelling public, enormous economic impacts to the Province, and a significant financial burden on our health care system: Therefore be it resolved that the provincial and federal governments make a long term commitment to increase the level of safety on our highway system by improving proven accident zones as well as highway upgrading to a four 4 lane highway, wherever possible and warranted.
Ministry of Transportation Infrastructure The safety of our highways is a priority for the Province. Highway Safety is fully integrated into the planning, design, construction, operations and maintenance of the highway network. We monitor highway safety and improve high risk locations in consultation with local and regional authorities. Since 2003 weve seen a 27 reduction in serious crashes on our highway system. In addition, the Ministry carries out a provincial analysis of collision data to identify and rank collision prone sites throughout the provincial highway system. These sites are summarized to support the selection of specific locations for more detailed safety investigations focused on understanding the root causes of the problem and developing cost effective solutions to reduce the frequency and severity of collision. The Ministry has committed 75 million over the next 3 years specifically to a safety program which covers a variety of safety projects including: - Community Safety Projects - Guardrail installations - Durable pavement markings - Variable speed limit systems - Wildlife detection systems - Avalanche protection systems - Cattle fencing In addition, the Ministry has committed 30 million over the next 3 years focused specifically on intersection safety. Safety is a key factor in our selection process for determining expansion projects and the implementation strategy of those projects. The programming of our expansion program considers the following: - Safety Performance - Traffic Volumes - Age of infrastructure - Reliabilityclosures In BC on the Move, our 10 year transportation plan, weve committed approximately 1 billion over the next three years to ensure our network has the capacity and reliability to meet the future transportation and trade needs.