Williams Lake Mayor Walt Cobb is disappointed the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says the portion of Dog Creek Road within City limits is the City’s responsibility to maintain.
“We are going to have to figure out where we go next,” Cobb said Tuesday. “I know we’ve been asking for a meeting in Victoria with the minister to talk about the issue.”
In a letter responding to the Cariboo Regional District’s request the province take over responsibility for the portion of Dog Creek Road within city limits, MOTI district manager Todd Hubner stated while he shared concerns about the condition of the road, Dog Creek Road falls to the municipality to own and maintain.
“Although the road in question is in need of some potentially significant rehabilitation, it’s important to note that the ministry is not in the business of re-assuming failing infrastructure from municipalities on the basis that it is too costly to repair,” Hubner stated.
Cobb, however, argued Dog Creek Road is an arterial road.
Read more: Dog Creek Road and Fox Mountain Road costly to maintain
“Everyone else all the way out to Dog Creek, Springhouse and Alkali Lake comes through on that road. If the ministry doesn’t consider that an arterial road then I guess we have the option of sending out notices and telling them we are shutting it down.”
If Dog Creek Road deteriorates further, Cobb said traffic could be directed to Hodgson Road.
“Or we can cut it off at the City boundaries and everybody would have to go through Winger Road and Roberts Road and come that way,” he said.
Cobb estimated fixing the road would cost at least two years of the City’s capital budget.
“Why wouldn’t the ministry pay for it? We are not asking them to take it back, we’re saying, ‘share in the cost of fixing it.’ If you look at where that bank keeps coming down onto the road that’s Crown land.”
Hubner stated in the letter to the CRD he has encouraged the City to pursue grant funding in place to support local proposed infrastructure improvements.
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Leah Hartley, the City’s director of development services, confirmed the City extended its boundaries in 1998 to include a portion of Dog Creek Road.