A review by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure into the April 16 closure of Highway 1 at Goldstream Park has been released. The review is focused on the speed in which alternate routes were established, and on the communication to the travelling public.

The review concludes that significant efforts were made by ministry resources to safely manage traffic and provide updated information to the public throughout the closure. However, clearly more could and should have been done to attend to those who were caught at the crash site and to provide travellers and businesses with accurate timely information needed to make informed travel choices.

The report includes key findings together with eight recommendations stemming from the review that focus on:

Improving deployment of traffic management personnel and overall resource co-ordination and integration with other emergency responders.

• Enhancing public communications surrounding both the accuracy of the estimated reopening and the assessment, description and signage of alternate routes.
• Ensuring ministry representatives and maintenance contractor personnel deployed to the site are fully and properly equipped to respond to the event.

The review also acknowledges the hard work of the emergency responders in ensuring the safety of both the travelling public and those responding to the fuel spill, as well as efforts to protect the environmentally-sensitive Goldstream area.

The ministry thanks all staff, agencies, contractors, stakeholders and individual citizens that participated in this review. The input they provided regarding the actions during the response and suggestions for improvement were invaluable in developing the report's recommendations.

The review was requested by Lekstrom on April 19.

Learn More:

The Malahat incident review can be found on the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure's website at:

http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/publications/reports_and_studies/malahat_incident/index.htm

Contact:

Jeff Knight
Government Communications and Public Engagement
Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure
250 356-7707