2024-01-11 00:43:27
A company responsible for maintaining a section of Route 172 was fined after failing to notify the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility of the state of the road, leaving two buses from Sacré -Cœur, in Côte-Nord, stuck on the road for 15 hours due to icy conditions.
• Read also: Stuck for 15 hours on Route 172
The Fernand Gilbert company will have to pay $4,649 in penalties to the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility. The ministry decided to reprimand the contractor since he failed to notify the ministry that he was unable to continue his operations on Route 172 due to weather conditions on December 9.
“Given that the road was icy and the contractor was no longer able to operate, he should have informed the ministry of the situation. It was on the communication aspect that the reprimand was made. All of this is provided for in the contract, so this is what was not respected,” explained Nathalie Girard, spokesperson for the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility.
Result: two buses carrying around forty people in total had to wait 15 hours at the side of the road, without food and without water, before being escorted.
“The minute we arrived at kilometer 45, where our city is boarding, it was completely different. It was on the asphalt, you could see that it had been maintained. That’s what was the most shocking,” said Josée Claude Mélany Quintal, present on one of the buses at the time of the incident.
175 fixes requested
Josée Claude Mélany and her colleagues at the CPE Grain de soleil in Sacré-Coeur hope that their misadventure will make it possible to make the necessary corrections.
“Having a fine won’t change anything for us. What we want is for those at the top to take this into consideration and change things. This road should be considered a main road. Also, we don’t have cellular network,” she said.
The mayor of Sacré-Cœur, Lise Boulianne, shared the demands of road users.[On voudrait] better maintenance first in winter. There are certain sections of the road that should be repaired because the road is in a deplorable state in certain places. And of course, cell coverage. We are committed to that, we will take all possible steps to make it happen,” said the mayor.
“As it is a road with an annual average daily flow of less than 2,500 vehicles, it is a road which is partially cleared. Approximately three meters of clearance in the center of the roadway is required in the contract. That doesn’t mean it’s not safe. The abrasives are spread as required and on curves, the clearance is more than five meters. This is the element that the municipality wants to discuss,” said Ms. Girard. A meeting is planned for the end of the month to discuss possible solutions. At Fernand Gilbert, the company has still not returned our calls.
1704951375
#Buses #stuck #Route #company #responsible #maintenance #reprimanded