The city of Kamloops will need a new bridge across the Thompson Rivers, but a site won’t be identified until at least next year.

Engineering Manager Deven Matkowski says in 2018 it was decided that the Singh Street bridge, which had been on the books for ages, wasn’t going to meet the needs of the community on how it wants to grow and what the transportation system will do. “So in that 2018 plan we said the Singh Street bridge isn’t meeting that need, but long, long term, so 2039/2040 type long term, we’re still going to need, the community is still going to need a crossing of the Thompson Rivers.”

“In that TMP (Transportation Master Plan) we had identified a year when we would start looking at trying to better nail down where would that crossing would be and if we need to securing land rights or otherwise just to be ahead in the planning.”

Instead of working on a bridge site this year, officials will turn their attention towards a Vision Zero road safety strategy.

Matkowski says the goal is to eliminate fatalities among all road users in Kamloops. “The strategy itself will now get developed through the summer. So we will initiate it this year. I don’t know when it will be completed. It is smaller but similar to the Transportation Master Plan or some of the neighbourhood plans that our planning group are doing. It takes a fair amount of time to do it properly.”

Matkowski says the Vision Zero strategy was identified in the Transportation Master Plan and it is looking to start developing that strategy this year.  “Let’s accelerate the Vision Zero strategy and take a look and hit the high need areas first, not just necessarily the ones that have been brought to out attention through complaints and approach it that way.”

Matkowski says it will be engaging with the community to develop the extensive road safety plan which could include things like reducing speed limits and improving site lines.