Krueger tables petition to restrict truck traffic on Highway 5A

By Andrea Klassen - Kamloops This Week Published: March 05, 2013 9:00 AM

As his political career winds down, outgoing Kamloops-South Thompson Liberal MLA Kevin Krueger is taking another stab at getting commercial trucks off Highway 5A. In the legislature on Monday, March 4, Krueger tabled a petition with more than 1,400 signatures gathered from homes along the highway between Kamloops and Merritt. Krueger said volunteers who collected the signatures "knocked on more than 95 per cent of all households adjacent to Highway 5A and they only had six people turn them down." He said it shows the support for a restriction, which would limit commercial truck traffic to local vehicles. Krueger said he would also like to see lower speed limits placed on the remaining trucks. Though he's been calling for it since 2010, the government has been reluctant to take Krueger up on such a ban, which would be the first of its kind in the province. "I know that it's a precedent that the ministry is reluctant to set and, yet, people are terrified of the truck traffic on that highway, and there is a great alternative in the Coquihalla," Krueger said. "We're beseeching government to do this." Krueger said government doesn't need to legislate a ban — which it wouldn't have time to do before the writ drops for the May 14 provincial election — but can enact it through regulation. He plans to write Transportation Minister Mark Polak and Premier Christy Clark, encouraging them to give the plan another look. Krueger said the proposal will save money because a truckless Highway 5A will require less maintenance and a decreased police presence. If a ban inspires other communities along numbered highways to make similar requests, Krueger said the Kamloops situation could be used as a benchmark to measure the severity of the situation.