By Camille Aubin
[email protected]

Radium Hot Springs has had truck management issues since the beginning of the major construction closure of Kicking Horse Canyon on the TransCanada earlier this spring sent squadrons of extra vehicles through the village on a long detour.

Between April 12 and May 14, the traffic on Highway 1 (the TransCanada) between Golden to Castle Junction is routed via Highways 93S and 95, which means Radium has seen its traffic increase drastically, especially the semi-trailers transporting goods from one side of the country to the other.

The noise and parking issues have dominated the discussion at the last Radium council meeting, held by Zoom on Wednesday, April 28. 

“We’re starting to see more and more conflicts. Those conflicts are very difficult to resolve and deal with. We have, for example, conflicts between truck parking at the Prestige, where we have refrigerator trucks that are running generators. And we also have those conflicts (that) are occurring with the residential areas surrounding places, where trucks are parking, like at the Prestige. This is starting to percolate and happen all over the municipality. And it’s not just truck parking or traffic noise… It’s parking in front of driveways, parking in residential areas. It’s going to be a challenging problem moving forward,” explained Radium chief administrative officer Mark Read to councillors. “There’s no easy answers here. This is not going to be a situation where we’re going to be able to make everyone happy.” 

According to Read, local residents are already extremely polarized over these issues. 

Throughout the night, generators keep the truck’s refrigerator running, which contributes to the noise problem. Another source of noise that local residents of Radium Hot Springs have expressed concern about is the use of the compression release engine brakes, more commonly named Jake brakes or Jacobs brakes, in the town area. “People are coming out of the park (Kootenay National Park), specifically, are using them (Jake brakes) and not turning them off in the municipality, and the motels along the strip have certainly given me feedback,” said councillor Mike Gray. 

To deal with those problems, mayor Clara Reinhardt expects more from the Commercial Vehicle Safety and Enforcement (CVSE). “They (CVSE) should be working on the off-peak hours. That’s their job, and they should be monitoring that. There’s no reason why they can’t go one or two nights a week around midnight and just see what’s going on out there.” 

Further, Reinhardt requested that signage should be put at the town’s entrance to clarify that trucks are not permitted to park within the municipality. Other signs in the park can make a difference, too, according to Reinhardt, indicating Jake brakes are not allowed inside the village except on the 95 and 93 highways. “We need some temporary signage, which is not going to solve the problem, but it makes at least some people follow. You know you’re never going to capture them all,” expressed Reinhardt.

Gray suggested keeping the Ministry of Transportation (MOT) aware of the current situation. “It’d be beneficial for us to have a discussion after this first round of closures (on the TransCanada) is done and bring MOT up to date on how it went,” said Gray.

A perfect solution to this problem did not appear to be within reach of the council. “We’re gonna have to bite the bullet here and do the best we can. It’s not gonna be a perfect scenario,” concluded Read on the matte