B.C. Transportation Minister Todd Stone announced $34 million in safety upgrades Wednesday to a five-kilometre section of the Malahat where a 33-year-old Shawnigan Lake man died last year.
The project will expand the Trans-Canada Highway to four lanes through Malahat Village and add three kilometres of median barriers.
“This will mean a safer drive, more passing opportunities, better reliability and reduced travel times and delays,” Stone said.
The project is slated to begin early next year and conclude in 2018. The province will cover $20 million with the federal government paying the rest.
“We’ve been knocking off the segments of the Malahat in order of priority based on the collision history,” Stone said. “The next most important segment to address and make the investment is the Malahat Village section.”
Once the project is completed, 65 per cent of the entire corridor will have a median barrier, he said.
The announcement comes after Dave Paulin died Nov. 18 when his southbound car was struck by a northbound pickup truck that crossed the centre line just north of Aspen Road near Malahat Village. The head-on crash shut down a 17.6-kilometre stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway and renewed calls for safety improvements.
Malahat Volunteer Fire Department Chief Rob Patterson said at the time that median barriers would have prevented Paulin’s death. He stuck by that comment Wednesday.
“Not a doubt in my mind,” he said.
“Everyone of my team members feels exactly the same way. They saw the scene, they saw the crash. If there had been barricades there, there’s no way in hell that gentleman would not be with us now.”
Patterson said the statistics speak for themselves; the fatality rate has dropped in areas where median barriers have been installed.
So while he called Stone’s announcement “awesome” news, Patterson urged the province to “finish the job” from one end of the corridor to the other.
“Twin it, divide it, make it safe,” he said.
“I wish to God the Olympics were in Nanaimo because it would be a moot point. The Malahat would be ripped out, redone, no questions asked.”
Stone said the province hopes to divide as much of the highway as possible, but he said there are stretches where it is “technically challenging” to add median barriers.
“Consider in Goldstream Park as one example where there would need to be some pretty significant disruption to the park in terms of blasting and tree removal in order to carve the space out in order to put median barriers down,” Stone said.
Patterson, however, rejects that argument.
“If they can do the Sea to Sky Highway, if they can do the Fraser Canyon, if they can do the Coquihalla, they can’t, in all honesty, look me square in the eye and draw a deep breath and tell me that they can’t do it, it’s too technical,” he said.
“They built the road to begin with, so don’t tell me it’s too technical.
“It’s just how much money they’re wishing to inject in it.”
