The ABCs of Winter Highway Classification and Maintenance

There is a culvert project between Williams lake and Alexis Creek. Who is the Prime Contractor? There is no signage indicating as such. Also when did that go out to tender? Must of missed it on BCBid
Thanks

This might not come under highway maintenance but, is there a maximum amount of snow that the grader can leave at the end of a private driveway? I live at the 108 Mile Ranch in B.C. The other day we got an obscene amount of snow left in the ends of our driveways. The pile in my driveway was about 2 1/2 feet high and about 4-5 feet across. Not everybody has a machine to remove the snow. Had there been an emergency no one could get in or out of their driveways.

thanks for all your guys work. I travel extensively in bc and the Yukon for work and I always plan all my drives with drive bc, weather reports, cameras, 511, etc.

I love to drive, love to drive in inclement weather, it’s my time to relax. I never said I was normal.

thanks again for all the maintenance. cheers,

Hi there,

How do we get the Class changed for our Road. According to your explanation of Classes, we should fall into Class D, however only the bottom of our road is and the hill we all live on is an F, which according to your definition makes no sense. We’ve gone up the chain of command and get various different answers and absolutely no reasonable solution. This is our third winter in our home dealing with this issue. There are five dwellings on this road and a sixth one that has access to it as well. We live on a hill that when not maintained, has caused some of us to have to park at the bottom and walk up. Since living here, emergency services have had to come up here, thankfully not in the winter. I dread to think of a scenario where they are needed and aren’t able to get up the road to assist because no one seems to care about upgrading our road. It seems silly that the bottom of our road is a class D but the hill where we all live is an F. We would sure appreciate some help on proceeding to get this changed.

Hello i live on Lone star road in Greenwood Bc. Not far from the Phoenix ski hill i would like to know why Yrb are plowing the Phoenix road to the ski hill but won t come down regularly on the Lone star road. I been told Lone star road is a D class road. We are 3 houses here that are forgotten this winter. I missed many days of work because road is often plowed 3 days after the snow fall We are 4 km on lone star road from the Phoenix road connection. Many time this yr and especially during the holidays they plowed the Phoenix road without coming on Lone star road At some point it becomes a big security hazard. Just this week they plowed road to ski hill every day but never on Lone star road since last Tuesday

How does a neighbourhood go about getting their road classification updated to be more reflective of current reality and usage? Two neighbourhoods on Quadra Island (off of Leishmans Road and Upshur Road) have a total of approximately 30 full time residences but are both listed as Level F – No winter maintenance. This classification may have made sense 25 years ago but not as development has continued in these areas.

Thanks for your help.

These instructions don’t seem to work… i completed all the steps up to “9. To the right of this check mark is a small bullet list icon. Click/select this icon and the legend of Winter Classification letters, corresponding colours and details should appear underneath the layer title.” the small bullet list icon doesn’t exist, it’s an arrow that takes you different options “zoom, turn on/off visualizations, remove layer” the map doesn’t show any corresponding colours or details.

There’s been numerous times in the West Kootenays (highway 6 and 3) when according to the weather forecast it’s pretty obvious black ice will form overnight. Although contractors are supposed to monitor the weather and anticipate such events there are definitely times when there’s been no salt applied to prevent ice. Why is this?

Live in spuzzum on front street. Our local contractor is saying our road is classified as a class f and that they don’t have to plow it. But on your map it shows as a D.

Live on a class D road – have to continually contact the local contractor because they plow most of the road as 2 lane, but only 1 lane where it enters a class B road creating a safety hazard! Plow truck is in a rush and does not plow the entrance properly – this has been going on for a couple of years now!

I am at 5323 Heywood Armstrong Road outside of Armstrong BC . I am in the historic Railway Belt . When the Dominion and Provincial government decided on what was to be done with jurisdiction of roads when concluding land ownership within the Railway Belt , they concluded the jurisdiction problem with the Scott Cathcart agreement of 1938 . In that Agreement , all current trails, streets, roads, highways became under Provincial control . Has anyone in the Ministry of Transportation aware of this fact ? I am directly effected by MoTI staff in complete ignorance of this Agreement . Once again , are you aware of the Agreement ?

YRB really is an EM”CON” in disguise. The first winter they took over, doing Hwy 22 Castlegar to Fruitvale I couldn’t believe the number of trucks cleaning and sanding the roads, commuting was finally safe again. Now, no sand, no plowing and where did all the plow/sand trucks go? I suppose they underbid so low that now their profit margin fell and ya’ just can’t do it for nothing, so do nothing and the profit soars.
This problem is only going to get worst and people will die because of the lower bidder’s absence of ability and lack of conscience.

In Stewart BC we are having serious issues with the contractor which will end up with death(s) if no one will hold them responsible for their incompetence. No sand no salt and never is the blade of the plow put down properly which has created a washboard for 40 KLMs! They also leave sections by Meziadan junction 37 and sections on 37A, so narrow that it is single lane width and Commercial Transport trucks and logging trucks fighting for room. Its absolutely insane! Last Sunday my mirror was cm’s away from the truck coming the opposite direction. I am hoping that someone c an look up all the vehicles that have left the roads on hwy 37 I know of four semi trucks and three family vehicles one family of three ended up hospitalized and one child in surgery that is my student. I spoke to the mother who was driving as to how it happened and she said deep slush not plowed black ice and she said there was no sand and the vehicle was sucked off the road like someone had taken over control! One truck driver said the same about how his semi left the road. There were ruts so deep on last Sundays drive back from Terrace that they were taking over my steering and I have an all wheel drive Nissan that has never reacted this way and I have been driving Northern BC roads for years. I’m going to publish a complaint in the news paper so that if nothing is done and someone dies there will be recourse for the families in the way of a lawsuit. Please send an inspector down here to drive Hwy 37 and 37A . RCMP will have records of all of the vehicles that have left that hwy because of the road conditions. It is irresponsible to hire contractors who get away with doing as little as possible to the roads perhaps not putting the blade down all the way and not using adequate amounts of sand or no sand/salt to save them money but not our lives. Rumour also about this contractor is that their equipment is substandard breaking down every time they go out. Where are the BC road safety inspectors???? Government cut costs by hiring contractors for road maintenance? The government is responsible to over see that their contractors do what is required for our safety.

Hello , I’m curious as to why are highways get little to no sand , salt or even properly plowed during/after snow storms ?

The lack of maintenance the past couple years is absolutely ridiculous , this year especially , you would think are highways are getting hammered with snow every night by the way they look.

I drove hwy 5 from Kamloops to Edmonton last night and the roads were absolutely ridiculous for ice and rough , a plowed field would have been better driving. Then once you got to the B.C/ Alberta boarder the roads were great.

I see the plow trucks out more days after than I do durning the storms or the next day.

So the same mountain pass that got hit with the same storm has entirely two different driving conditions ?

What’s it going to take to have a proper maintained roads ? Is it going to take a family losing their life or multiple families and individuals losing their lives ? ???

Just scraping the top and only putting sand in the middle of the road doesn’t work , putting little to nothing on the uphills and downhills and doesn’t work.

The gravel road up to the Hemlock Valley and Sasquatch Mountain Resort is in need of being properly maintained. The state of the section of gravel road is practically undriveable due to the number of daily increasing pot holes on the road. Who do I contact about this?

Highway 1 might be a class A route but the 1960s two lane sections have an E grade of service (i.e. demand is approaching capacity, passing is virtually impossible, platooning becomes intense and speeds are seriously curtailed). I guess that is why the Kamloops to Alberta ‘program’ is on schedule for completion some time in the 2060s (if it is ever completed).

I live in the Hazeltons on Chappel Rd, a class D road with four houses that is 250 meters long and has a small hill in the middle, branching off North Boundary Rd, another class D road with three houses that is maybe 300 meters long and has a small hill at the end. My driveway starts about 450 meters altogether from Highway 16.

The old, local roads contractor – Billabong – would get Chappel and Boundary plowed between 24 and 48 hours after a snowfall. Last year our region was switched to a new, corporate contractor from the interior – Dawson – and at first they would get Chappel and Boundary plowed within 72 to 96 hours; that is to say, they took twice as long to do the work in any given situation. Toward the end of last snow season, though, they stopped plowing Chappel at all. Twice last year and now again with a fall of 30 centimeters or so this year, over 48 hours ago now, they have plowed part way along Boundary but do not plow its hill, or enter at all into Chappel. Once they actually left a berm of snow plowed off Boundary across the entry to Chappel. Last year when I contacted them through their website they eventually sent someone back to do Chappel. This year they have not responded. In other words, it seems those of us on Chappel have been abandoned completely (above and beyond the question of whether – when they still plowed at all – the company was getting as much pay as the former contractor to do the same work in double the time).

Where can I bring a complaint about things like other than to the contractor itself, which I would no longer want to do now that this has happened three times, even if it still worked? Also, out of curiousity, WAS the payment for snow clearing in our region cut in half from what it was two years ago, or is there some other cause of the slowdown – which is not just on my road but also the highways, rail crossings and so on.

Hello Tranbceditor! I live on Gambier Island, on Hope Point Road. I followed the IMapBC instructions and added as many layers as I could, to make sure I wasn’t missing any. Most of the roads here (except for one small piece) do not show up with any classification, ownership or governance. I was told that all the roads here are classified as 8f but was given no documentation to support this. The iMapBC info does not show our road (or most of the roads here) as 8f. Is there another way I can definitively determine ownership, governance and classifciation of our roads?

Hi
I’m Jorgen Christensen
I would like to know what classification Pinchi Lake rd and Germansen Landing rd is?
Thanks Jorgen.

The crew that takes care of Highway 97 from McKenzie junction to Honeymoon creek is lacking the understanding of what a Class “A” highway is. Please forward there management the agreement of what they have been contracted to do. A lot of corners on the highway are not plowed completely and forces oncoming traffic across the yellow line. Unacceptable!

Have you heard of Vancouver Island? Quite a few folk out here could do with a plow! Highway 19 A I’m fairly sure would-be an A or B category. .. doesn’t look very plowed to me! Comox / Campbell River area.

I am wondering who is maintaining or cleaning the snow in highway 1? We passed 5am and again at 5pm but the road still the same. We are expecting that the road is already cleaned up by this time but still not…so sad..

Could you please let me know what the classification of mt seymour road is? Doing some research

Hi…I am looking for more detailed information about BC’s winter hwy classification system. Can you provide me with a link to more specific details, AADT or WADT thresholds, classification of road, etc. Thanks Mike

Hi I’m looking for a document “Maintenance Services Manual: Standards for Road and Bridge Maintenance Services”. Does this still exist or has it been replaced by another name/manual?
I’m drafting up a tender for Winter Maintenance and want to include the requirements from the manual.

Is there a list of what highways have what classification? I’ve heard several complaints about Highway 5 between Kamloops and Tete Jaune Cache over the years and was wondering what its designation was.