Hartley Creek Bridge Detour

Public safety — pedestrians, children and wildfire evacuation

Wildfire: Dicken Road will become the only evacuation route to the North of Fernie. Restricting it to a residential road during summer — BC's peak wildfire season — risks creating a lethal chokepoint. A bypass would keep the highway corridor flowing and leave Dicken Road as a secondary evacuation route.

Local residents: No combination of words in a Traffic Management Plan — a document that does not yet exist and which the public will not be permitted to see — can make this proposal safe. Pedestrians, schoolchildren, driveway users and emergency vehicles will all be at greatly increased risk.

Emergency response: The road is not wide enough to accommodate both hard shoulders and larger vehicles simultaneously. RCMP, Fire and Ambulance will be unable to drive Code 3. The numerous private driveways will further impede emergency response in busy highway traffic.

Contractor risk: MOTT will define the safety plan for the detour, but implementation will be left to a for-profit contractor. Their motivation will be to do the absolute minimum required.

Failure to follow consultation procedures

The Ministry's own policies require community consultation before decisions of this nature are made. At a public hearing, Ministry representatives admitted repeatedly that this process was not followed. This is not a technicality — it is the foundation of public trust in government decision-making.

Questionable cost claims and hidden calculations

MOTT initially claimed this option was cheaper than a bypass — yet the plan requires repaving Dicken Road twice. By the time of the May 25 Project Update that cost argument was quietly dropped. Instead MOTT now argues the money will be "invested" in shoulder widening and repaving Dicken Road — improvements no one has asked for and which are actively opposed by residents.

When residents requested MOTT's cost calculations under Freedom of Information, MOTT demanded a $450 fee and then refused to waive it — claiming cost information for a public infrastructure project is not "in the wider public interest." A complaint has been filed with the BC Information and Privacy Commissioner.

Impact on residents, businesses and highway users

Local businesses: Fernie Brewing Company, Stephenson's, Backyard Mechanical, Day Auto, Home Hardware, Fernie Auto Parts, Fernie Hearth and Home, Mow and Snow, Larsen and Whelan, Ghostrider Motorsports, Fernie Property Care, Ghostrider Storage, the GM and Ford dealerships, Cook's Electric, Elk Valley Rentals, River City Woodworks, Snow Valley Spas, Kootenay Custom Interiors, Fernie Computer Repair, Elk River Homes, Pace Excavating and BC Hydro all have access points that will be severely affected by highway-volume traffic.

Highway users: Over 20,000 vehicles a day travel Highway 3 in summer. RVs, vacationers, commercial traffic and heavy loads will face major delays. Any oversized load will require the entire section to be closed to one-way traffic. Delays will cost the Province millions in lost commerce.

MOTT's own mandate commits to "efficient transportation systems that support BC's economic growth." The Dicken Road detour clearly fails to meet this standard.

Impact on private property — a double standard

MOTT states it does not wish to build a bypass due to "impacts on local private properties." In reality, MOTT has not even spoken to the residents who own the property adjacent to the highway that a bypass would require. Crucially, the landowner on whose land a bypass would run has confirmed that they support the bypass — but had never been contacted by MOTT. The Ministry expresses concern for a handful of highway-adjacent properties it has not contacted, while ignoring the impacts to hundreds of Dicken Road properties whose owners have clearly stated their opposition.