One big issue in January 1929 — 89 years ago — was a proposal to build a highway that would be known as the West Coast Road or the Ocean Highway. The idea was to connect Victoria with Port Alberni, although there was no consensus on the route to be taken.
Victoria to Port Renfrew was common to all proposals, but should the road then go to Lake Cowichan, then to Port Alberni? Or from Lake Cowichan to Nitinat Lake to Bamfield and then along the water to Alberni? Or possibly forget about Lake Cowichan, and just push west from Port Renfrew to Bamfield?
Decisions, decisions. In the end, next to nothing was done, but we’re getting there. The road between Port Renfrew and Lake Cowichan was improved to allow for tourist traffic in the summer of 2009, just 80 years after the flurry of excitement.
Blame the editors of the Daily Colonist for the delay. After all, they were urging caution.
As opinion in the population centres of Southern Vancouver Island begins to develop, it is evident that the provincial government is showing wisdom in making haste slowly in deciding what route will be followed by a so-called West Coast Road.
Any road policy should primarily be designed for land-settlement purposes, for industrial-development work and for catering to existing centres of population. It is not clear at all that the route already mapped out for a West Coast Road would prove a development road from the standpoints noted.
Its location touches too few populated centres; its construction offers many costly difficulties; the area of Vancouver Island which it would pierce is not necessarily the most desirable territory for immediate settlement.
These are considerations which the provincial government, responsible to all the people, cannot overlook.
Already, both Duncan and Port Alberni have been heard on the subject of suggested changes.
The former favours the road from Victoria to Port Renfrew, but it wants construction from west to east, from Port Renfrew toward Cowichan Lake until it connects with existing roads that are laterals of the Island Highway.
Port Alberni, very naturally, wants any West Coast road to include that centre of population on its route, and to be designed as a highway carried on to the settlements at Ucluelet and other west coast points.
Already Port Alberni is asking for the construction of the continuation of the Sproat Lake Road westward to Tofino, and the Alberni district residents generally want the Beaver Creek Road built northward to the Comox district so as to provide an outlet for their dairy products.
Any new road-building program on Vancouver Island should be considered from the standpoint of Island development as a whole.
The Alberni and Cowichan districts want such developments as will lead to industrial progress and new settlement. They are on sound ground in advocating road-building from these standpoints.
Road-building, as a matter of governmental policy, should be based on transportation requirements. In other words, what new highways hold out the best prospects of catering to commercial traffic? So far as recommendations made to the government are concerned, obviously the most authoritative body from which these could emanate is the Associated Boards of Trade of Vancouver Island.
In addition to this, it must be remembered that the government itself is the responsible party and that any program it undertakes will be directed by the reports of its engineers.
Daily Colonist, Jan. 29, 1929
