THUNDER BAY — It may look ready to go from the road, but a new provincial commercial truck inspection station just east of Thunder Bay hasn't yet opened.
A Ministry of Transportation (MTO) spokeswoman said Tuesday that final touches at the $30-million Highway 11/17 facility in Shuniah Township are still being carried out.
The Highway 11/17 station, which cost $30 million to build, is located just west of Pass Lake.
Though it's expected to begin operating sometime this year, "we are currently doing on-site testing of our technology in collaboration with MTO enforcement staff," the ministry spokeswoman said in an email.
Meanwhile, trucking advocates say road safety is a two-way street.
A majority of truckers who responded to a safety survey last month said driving Northern Ontario routes like highways 17 and 11 is often hair-raising for reasons other than mechanical defects.
About 600 respondents in the Ontario Truckers Association (OTA) survey highlighted unsafe passing by other vehicles, a shortage of rest areas for truckers and poor driving training as key factors that lead to collisions and fatalities in the North.
"Nearly 96 per cent of (survey) respondents identified persistent problems for travellers and businesses in the (Northern) region," the truckers' group said in a news release.
Potential solutions listed by truckers include adding more passing and climbing lanes and more oversight of unsafe trucking fleets.
The survey results should be a wake-up call to the provincial government about the state of highway driving in the North, the province's NDP said.
"Truck drivers are calling our offices every week to tell us there needs to be better training and increased oversight," NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois said in a news release.
"Those training the drivers must also be trained and licensed to train other drivers," added Vaugeois (Thunder Bay-Superior North). "Schools are receiving thousands of dollars to train commercial drivers, but many are providing poor training."
Ontario Truckers Association chairman James Steed said while the trucking association "believes the provincial government has already taken meaningful action to address some of the issues identified in the survey . . . even more can be done to improve the highway conditions, commercial vehicle enforcement and driver training and licensing standards."
An existing Ministry of Transportation inspection station on Highway 11/17 near the Arthur Street intersection was boarded up last summer after it was damaged by fire. It wasn't known at the time if MTO planned to reopen that facility.
The Chronicle Journal / Local Journalism Initiative
