The province is rolling out $2.5 billion to improve transportation around the province, including more than $200 million to make Northern BC highways safer, though a shuttle service along Highway 16 has stalled.
Speaking on his tour promoting the new B.C. on the Move plan, Transportation Minister Todd Stone dismissed the idea of a shuttle along the stretch of road known as “the Highway of Tears”, though he maintains he is committed to fulfilling recommendations made in Wally Oppal’s Missing Women’s Report.
“We’ve subsequently ruled out a shuttle bus, simply for the reason that it wouldn’t be viable on a corridor that is almost 800km long,” Stone said. “It would be like running a shuttle bus from Vancouver through almost to the Alberta border.”
That analogy doesn’t hold up for the MLA whose jurisdiction runs along that area – Doug Donaldson of Stikine.
“People want a safe, affordable, public transportation system across Highway 16 and for the Minister to make comments like that, I think it shows that he doesn’t really understand the issue,” Donaldson said.
Stone came to this conclusion after his Ministry “looked long and hard” at how to make shuttle service along the corridor work.
“In fact, we spoke to 80 different First Nations community leaders last summer, staff of my Ministry did,” Stone said.
Donaldson says the notes of those meetings were never released.
“We don’t know what kind of feedback was given to him. When the Minister refuses to release notes, it makes you think that perhaps he didn’t want the suggestions put forward by First Nations leaders and municipal leaders,” he said.
In 2013, city councils in Smithers, Terrace, and Prince Rupert unsuccessfully called on Greyhound to stop its cut to 40% of its service along Highway 16.