Horgan to meet with First Nation on logging road safety after Van Island bus crash

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – An infamous logging road on the west coast of Vancouver Island will be at topic of conversation when Premier John Horgan meets with Indigenous leaders early next week.

There has been a decades-long push for improvements to the route where a deadly bus crash happened last week.

Emma Machado of Winnipeg and John Geerdes from Iowa, both 18 years old, were killed when a charter bus with 45 University of Victoria students on board left a gravel road and landed down an embankment on Sept. 13.

Premier Horgan is expected to sit down with members of the Huu-ay-aht First Nation on Tuesday to discuss the state of logging road, the only route between Port Alberni and Bamfield.

It is also the only road to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre – the destination of the bus when it crashed last Friday.

Chief Robert Dennis says his nation has long been seeking upgrades to the privately-owned gravel road. In 2008, B.C.’s Forest Safety Ombudsman recommended improvements and one of the survivors of last week’s crash has started an online petition to push the province to make the road safer.

The petition already has thousands of signatures.

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