Bob Simpson addressed the issue at Tuesday night’s City Council meeting, adding that he had spoken with Transportation Minister Rob Flemming earlier in the day.
“They will be deploying emergency resources to our area, and particularly the roads around Quesnel, both equipment and personnel, and they are expediting the geotechnical engineering review of some of the main ones that have become problematic.”
Simpson also noted that the Minister was hoping to visit the region some time in June.
He also said that he felt there was a lot of alarmism in the stories in the news around Quesnel’s roads.
“Most of those roads have workarounds. It is not a situation like you had up in the Peace where an entire community gets trapped or a bridge gets knocked out and an entire community gets trapped.  So really at this stage there is inconvenience for folks as these roads get in pretty rough shape and/or fail, and/or have landslides into them.  People do have workarounds so we’re very fortunate in that regard.”
Simpson said he felt that the Minister was on the right track in taking a look at all of the roads in a strategic lens because we have a lot.
“And it really begs the question if you’re going to make investments, where should you be making those investments.  Not every road can be invested in, particularly when there are so many different and alternate routes.  So I think it’s time for a strategic investment in our area on key roads that are then restructured, rebuilt and maintained in this changing climate.”
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