TIMMINS - Two NDP candidates in Northern Ontario joined forces to call for improved highway safety in the region and share their party's plan.
As Timmins candidate Corey Lepage and Timiskaming-Cochrane incumbent John Vanthof talked in Hoyle just off Highway 101, transport trucks heading towards Highway 11 drove by.
Every day, 2,000 transports take to Highway 11, said Vanthof.
“In Northern Ontario, highway safety has been a long-term issue. Quite frankly, people are afraid. Many people are afraid to drive on the highways because they share the highway, the main street, with transports ... and there’s been so many accidents that people are rightfully frightened. Quite frankly, the Conservative government hasn’t really taken action on highway safety,” he said.
The Ontario NDP's plan includes immediate action to have the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO) test all new commercial motor vehicle (CMV) drivers instead of private companies.
In the short term, they want highway maintenance to return to MTO standards, increase staffing for inspections and enforcement and expedite the 2+1 highway pilot project. The 2+1 model is essentially a three-lane highway incorporating a passing lane that changes direction every two to five kilometres.
The medium-term plan is mandatory snow tires for Northern Ontario vehicles, better winter driving training, stricter enforcement of commercial vehicle standards, and more rest stops.
The long-term goal is to pave and widen the shoulders, and expand Highway 11 and 17 into a divided four-lane highway, and invest in freight rail to reduce truck traffic.
“A big problem for truckers is there's no places for truckers to stop. There’s no shoulders on many of the highways so they can’t pull over. We’ve been promised to have parking areas with washrooms for years. Again, it’s not rocket science,” said Vanthof.
From Sept. 2, 2024, to Jan. 27 there were over 30 crashes of varying severity on Highway 11, according to MTO data provided by Vanthof. Of those, 28 involved CMVs.
“This isn’t just local traffic. The local traffic shares it with cross-country trucks and we need to keep everybody safe. Everyone else seems to be able to do it. They seem to be able to move mountains in Toronto, yet here they just look the other way,” said Vanthof.
Every day, people or their family members are travelling Highway 11, said Lepage.
“We need to be worrying about our family members and our friends travelling on our roads because they’re just simply unsafe. We have too many large transport drivers on our highways who just are not properly trained and we need to change that,” he said.
The NDP, said Lepage, isn't afraid to talk about the issue.
"And what’s shameful is that George Pirie and other PC candidates across the province aren’t even discussing anything. They’re not agreeing to do any candidate debates, they’re not agreeing to speak to the media, they’re not agreeing to do interviews. We’re here speaking about real issues that matter to people in Timmins and across the North. And again, I’m going to call on George Pirie to accept to do a candidate debate so that we can talk about issues like this that affect everyone throughout the north,” he said.
The Ontario election is on Feb. 27.