Province urged to invest in rural road safety

THUNDER BAY, Ont. — The province needs to invest in rural road safety, says the mayor of Hornepayne.

“In 2021, roughly 60 per cent of municipal road fatalities occurred on rural roads, even though only 17 per cent of Ontarians live in rural areas,” Mayor Cheryl Fort told MPPs during a pre-budget consultation session at a Thunder Bay hotel.

“So, although living in northern Ontario is already a life risk, this further enhances across Ontario for all rural Ontarians,” she continued, speaking to the legislators as president of the Ontario Good Roads Association.

The provincial Standing Committee on Finance and Economic Affairs held pre-budget consultations in Thunder Bay on Thursday, after sessions on earlier dates in Toronto, Kitchener, Kapuskasing and other centres. A final day of public consultations is scheduled for Thursday in Sudbury.

More money for safer rural roads is “an investment,” Fort said.

“So we’re asking over five years to invest in a rural road safety program,” she continued.

“This is beyond provincial highways and what the province takes care of already.

“These are roads within municipalities where signage, rumble strips, guard rails and the like can reduce fatalities, reduce serious injury.

“I think it’s a win-win for all of the different ministries, especially when we look at health and our emergency response.”

Collisions are both costly to the public purse and the cause of many preventable injuries, she said.

“If we fail to act, we are allowing preventable injuries and fatalities to occur,” Fort said.

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Municipal insurance implications

“Municipal insurance and liability costs will rise, and we know we’re already struggling with that with municipalities. It’s a budget line item that just keeps increasing, and it costs the taxpayers more and more each year.

“Collisions will continue to burden hospitals and EMS, undermining efforts to build sustainable health-care systems … and the gap between rural and urban communities will continue to grow, eroding fairness and economic opportunity.”

Fort said Ontario Good Roads, an organization dating back to 1894, is proposing a small “investment with major returns.”

Approximately $2.7 million over five years would produce hundreds of millions of dollars in economic benefits from improvements in collision costs, health-care spending, productivity and more, she said.

Based on savings to the health-care system alone “this is a win-win,” she concluded.

“I think really, from where I stand as a northern Ontarian, it’s an easy yes into the future of keeping people safe.”

In a written statement provided to Newswatch, Thunder Bay-Atikokan MPP Kevin Holland said “I appreciate hearing from Cheryl Fort, president of Good Roads, on the key issues the board is currently focused on with municipalities. From my time working with the board it was helpful to revisit these matters and understand how they continue to evolve.”

Greenstone Mayor Jamie McPherson told Newswatch “it’s tremendous to have” Fort presenting on rural road safety, an important issue in McPherson’s sprawling municipality along Highway 11.

Only one passing lane

“Our biggest issue is Highway 11 and the fact that it runs almost 100 kilometers through our municipality and there’s only one passing lane in the whole municipality,” McPherson said.

“When the snow comes, when people try to pass, bad things happen sometimes.”

McPherson said he supports the idea of implementing a “two-plus-one” system — a three-lane highway with a centre passing lane that changes direction every few kilometres — on Highway 11 in the region.

Thunder Bay-Superior North MPP Lise Vaugeois and other northern politicians have made safe roads an issue for many years.

Vaugeois, who was at Wednesday’s session in Thunder Bay, has told Newswatch highway safety is the top priority in northern Ontario.

She co-sponsored a highway safety bill introduced by an NDP caucus colleague last year, but it was defeated in the legislature.

A Liberal MPP told Newswatch in October that Premier Doug Ford’s government “is not doing anything right” on northern highway safety.

A collision on Highway 11 near Hearst in December claimed the lives of a 41-year-old Dryden woman and her two children.