The following statement was given today in the House of Assembly by the Honourable Steve Crocker, Minister of Transportation and Works:

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise in this Honourable House today to highlight further improvements our government is making toward our snow clearing services on our highways for the 2018-19 winter season.

Last year, our government introduced the province’s first tow plow – an effective piece of equipment that clears snow and spreads salt on two lanes at the same time – and we also launched the Provincial Plow Tracker application that began providing real time locations of equipment on our busiest routes.

We later expanded that Provincial Plow Tracker service to all routes on the island portion of our province over the winter.

Mr. Speaker, I am proud to announce that in December, we are expanding that service once again to highways in Labrador.

In addition, we have purchased another tow plow and two new brine tankers, which help ensure we use our salt effectively.

Earlier this week, we added a new highway camera on Route 461, St. George’s Highway. As we announced in Budget 2018, we are also adding cameras in Stephenville, Rocky Harbour and Lumsden and we will continue to expand our cameras network.

The new tow plow, brine tankers and highway cameras complement our other equipment, online road condition reports, Snow Means Slow campaign, and Twitter updates to help motorists plan for a safe trip.

Finally, when the new section of the Team Gushue Highway opens, it will be one of our now 14 routes to have overnight snow clearing.

The top priority for the 700 people who work long nights and early mornings on our highways is to keep people safe. We are thankful for the service they provide often in poor weather conditions.

Mr. Speaker, while we improve services for the safety of all highway travellers, we remind motorists the best way to ensure safety is to slow down, drive to conditions and ensure your vehicle is properly equipped for winter driving.

Mr. Speaker, Snow Means Slow.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.