On Aug. 28, a motor vehicle accident occurred on Highway 19 at Ware Road in Lantzville at 10:45 a.m. It involved a passenger vehicle and a semi-trailer truck.
We left Parksville at about 2 p.m. heading for Nanaimo thinking the road would be clear three hours after the accident.
We were wrong.
The traffic was backed up as far north as Scottie Road almost to the Parksville exit. Fortunately, we didn’t have to proceed to Nanaimo so were able to u-turn at Kinghorn Road. However, that 4.1 kilometres took 50 minutes as the traffic was crawling. At 3 p.m., more than four hours after the accident the traffic was still backed up to Scottie Road, 15 kilometres north of the accident site.
This road closure on that section of Highway 19 is quite frequent as we have been caught in it on three occasions. There is no detour route possible. Such closures are unacceptable on the only highway available. Push the wrecks off the road and get the traffic moving. It’s time that the investigation of these accidents are accelerated.
I believe that the Ministry of Transportation needs to sit down with the RCMP and have a brainstorming session to come up with a solution to this problem.
While it did not cause us anything more than a waste of nearly an hour for many in that line up it could mean missing a flight, a ferry an appointment, etc.; and for the commercial vehicles, much lost time.
Terrence Murphy
French Creek