By Steve Hubrecht
[email protected]
The drive through Kootenay National Park will be a little bit safer this year, from a communications perspective, thanks to one significantly upgraded and three brand new permanent emergency satellite phones that Parks Canada and the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) will be installing beginning this spring.
The long drive up (or down) Highway 93 is well known among Columbia Valley residents, second homeowners and visitors for two things: its spectacular scenery (it is a national park, after all) and its lack of cell phone reception or wifi connection. Most people driving through the park from the valley loose cell phone service and wifi at a short tunnel a few minutes drive east of Radium and don’t pick it up again until almost arriving at the TransCanada Highway, 100 kilometres further northeast. Although the lack of cell service is something some people enjoy (with one less distraction to pull their attention away from the nature surrounding them), quite a few others cite concern that the lack of connection greatly delays the arrival of paramedics, police, firefighters and other first responders in the event of a vehicle accident or other emergency. In fact, a group of valley residents lobbied hard several years ago in an effort to have some emergency communications devices installed in the park.
Those concerns coupled with anticipated large surges in traffic volumes on Highway 93, owing to periodic closures of (and re-routing of traffic from) the TransCanada Highway, over the next several years during the Kicking Horse Canyon twinning upgrades mean that Parks Canada will be putting in emergency phones at (from north to south) the Marble Canyon day-use area, the Simpson River trailhead, the Parks Canada operations centre at Kootenay Crossing, and the Kootenay River day-use area. Once all the emergency phones are installed, drivers will (in good driving and weather conditions) never be more than 15 minutes from the nearest one.
The Kootenay Crossing operations centre has had an emergency phone for 25 years, but the current phone will be replaced with new satellite technology. All four satellite phones will connect directly to Banff Dispatch for emergency services, 24 hours a day year-round.
“We’re really pleased with where we’re at,” Lake Louise Yoho Kootenay superintendent Rick Kubian told the Pioneer. “Visitor safety is a high priority.”
The four satellite phones will be “a more robust system” of emergency response communications than the current single phone, explained Kubian, noting that the phones are just one part of a suite of improvements (including improved paving, bridge re-surfacing, new bridges, and enhanced wildlife fencing) that Parks Canada has undertaken in the past several years in advance of the Kicking Horse Canyon project on the TransCanada and the subsequent increase in traffic.
The first emergency phone, the one at the Marble Canyon, is set to be installed this spring, said Kubian, and by this fall, all four should be in place.
“They will look somewhat like phone booths, with high profile signage,” said Kubian, adding they are modelled after other public emergency satellite phone systems used in remote locations elsewhere in North America.
In a press release, Parks Canada outlined that new highway signs will be installed and existing signs modified to include an SOS symbol, and that mileage markers will also be installed along the highway to help the travelling public determine their precise location when reporting an emergency.
Kubian emphasized that “safety is shared responsibility” and that motorists must do their part to help reduce and avoid accidents, by paying attention to and respecting driving conditions and weather conditions on Highway 93.
The emergency phones are a joint project between Parks Canada and the B.C. Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI), with MOTI contributing $40,000 out of the total cost of $80,000 to purchase and install the phones.
