Saturday, March 7, 2009

A six vehicle pile up occurred on the John Hart Highway (British Columbia Highway 97), north of the John Hart Bridge in Prince George, British Columbia, Canada which disrupted traffic during the morning rush hour of March 5, 2009.

No serious injuries arose as a result of the accident, however traffic was reduced to a single lane. Traffic control was conducted by a Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who was at the scene at the time of the accident (7:45 a.m.). The RCMP cruiser was not one of the vehicles involved in the pile up. The crash was put under investigation by a traffic analyst.

The John Hart Highway connects Prince George,a city of 70,981 according to the 2006 census, with Dawson Creek over a length of approximately 250 miles (400 km). The Northwest Corridor Association saw a C$30 million twinning upgrade to the John Hart bridge which spans the Nechako River, a tributary of the Fraser River. The bridge is located 5.4 kilometres (3.4 miles) north of Prince George. In March there is a traffic volume of between 11,000 to 12,000 vehicles per day at the north end of the John Hart bridge according to the the British Columbia Ministry of Transportation Average Annual Daily Traffic AADT reports between 1994 and 2000.