The Dicken Road detour opposition petition is now closed and received a whopping 1003 signatures! Thank you for your support.
A letter writing campaign is now underway to add weight to this effort. A letter from you directly will help immensely to drive home the message that using Dicken Road as a long term detour is a ridiculous plan.
You can send your letter by email, or by regular mail. Suggested wording is included below, and you can either copy and paste this wording directly, or modify it as you like.
Letters should be sent to:
PETE DAVIS
MLA
Kootenay-Rockies
#302 - 535 Victoria Avenue N
Cranbrook, BC
V1C 6S3
Pete.Davis.MLA@leg.bc.ca
Copies should be sent to:
Mike Farnworth
Minister of Transportation and Transit
Box 9055
Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC
V8W 9E2
mike.Farnworth.MLA@leg.bc.ca
Heather Wood
Deputy Minister of Transportation and Transit
Box 9055
Stn Prov Govt, Victoria, BC
V8W 9E2
DeputyMinister.Transportation@gov.bc.ca
Hilary Barnett
District Manager
BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit
Rocky Mountain District
129 - 10th Avenue South
Cranbrook, BC
V1C 2N1
250-420-6550
Hilary.Barnett@gov.bc.ca
Suggested wording:
Re: Proposed use of Dicken Road as a detour beginning May 2026
This is a request that you, as the Kootenay / Rockies MLA, advocate that the Ministry of Transportation and Transit find an alternative to using Dicken Road as a detour route for its Hartley Creek bridge construction project.
As you are likely aware, beginning in May 2026, the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit plan plans to divert all Highway 3 traffic the length of Dicken Road for six months rather than build a bypass at the bridge construction site as is generally done for this kind of project.
From a safety perspective, Dicken Road is unsuitable for the heavy traffic sustained by Highway 3 because it has 38 private and business driveway accesses, eight mobile home park accesses, six multifamily and industrial subdivision accesses, and eight primary commercial and secondary road intersections. There is no paved shoulder, no street lighting, and it is regularly used by pedestrians and bicyclists to get back and forth to school and work. Speeding is already a concern.
Summer highway traffic is excessive. It is not uncommon to see traffic backed up for kilometres outside of Fernie, particularly on weekends. It is hard to imagine how customers will be able to access Fernie businesses in the industrial subdivision under these circumstances. Making a left turn onto and off of the detour route would be nothing short of dangerous. The two stop signs on the route will add to backing up vehicles.
We expect that objection from your office will be effective in helping to ensure that a more reasonable solution is found to divert traffic for this project.
Thank you for your help with this.
Sincerely,