With another $15 million in upgrades on the way, the Malahat could soon have trouble living up to its reputation as a dangerous highway.
Last week, Premier Christy Clark announced the extra money, which will add 2.3 kilometres of median barriers to tame the notorious NASCAR Corner north of Shawnigan Lake Road. By the time it鈥檚 finished, barriers will be in place on more than 50 per cent of the highway.
While Islanders are used to thinking they take their lives in their hands every time they hit the Malahat, the road has become safer in recent years as the government has put money into fixing the most hazardous parts. The new money comes on top of the $18 million the province had spent since 2001.
The most visible upgrades have been the barriers, which prevent cars from colliding head-on and make the trip less of a white-knuckle expedition. The latest cash will go toward the most serious of the remaining danger-spots: NASCAR Corner.
It鈥檚 the stretch just south of the summit where the two northbound lanes merge. Lead-footed drivers hit the gas to try to get past slower drivers before the two lanes become one.
When work is finished, the barriers will extend all the way from Shawnigan Lake Road to the summit, keeping the fast drivers on their own side of the road.
The barriers should not only prevent head-on collisions, but contain any accidents one side of the highway. The concrete will also give travellers a greater sense of safety as cars hurtle toward them.
Statistics have consistently shown that the Malahat has no more crashes or fatalities than any other road in the province, but a crash can tie up the road for hours and there are no detours for most of it. Between 2006 and 2011, it averaged 10.5 closures per year, lasting from an hour to 20 hours.
Because Malahat accidents usually shut off all traffic in both directions, they get noticed in a way that crashes on other roads don鈥檛.
The Malahat鈥檚 main problem is capacity. It averages 22,300 vehicles a day. It has a capacity of 1,400 vehicles an hour, and last year, it hit 1,323 on the busiest day.
Before the recession cramped travel numbers, the government predicted the flow would hit 2,500 per hour by 2026.
The two-lane sections limit the traffic flow. With cliffs on both sides, widening the highway for its whole length would be prohibitively expensive.
It would cost about $400 million to turn the 20-kilometre stretch of road into a four-lane divided highway, according to a study done in 2007 for the Transportation Ministry, and it would have serious effects on Goldstream Park.
Widening the Malahat is a pipe-dream, but traffic is inevitably going to increase with population. The province is nearing the limit of what it can afford to do.
Median barriers can prevent some accidents, especially the most serious ones, but can鈥檛 cocoon every car. That puts the onus on drivers.
In the summer of 2011, police blitzed the Malahat for two months, handing out 1,800 speeding tickets. During the enforcement campaign, there were no fatal crashes, which suggests the key to a safer highway is as much in the hands of drivers as of governments.
The province has improved safety on the highway over the past 10 years. Making it even safer is up to us.
