The proposed Highway 3 Dicken Road Detour during the upcoming Hartley Creek Bridge construction has triggered strong concern from residents, many of whom say the plan puts community safety at risk.
The BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit is proposing to divert Highway 3 traffic onto Dicken Road for roughly four kilometres during bridge construction scheduled between May and October 2026. For people who live along the road, the proposal came as a surprise — and the reaction has been swift.
Dicken Road is not a highway corridor. It is a residential and rural access road used every day by people heading to work, checking mail, walking dogs, riding bikes, and getting kids to school buses. Homes, farms, businesses, and mobile home parks line the road, and traffic regularly turns in and out of driveways and side roads. The road has no shoulders and limited space separating vehicles from cyclists or pedestrians.
Residents say routing sustained highway traffic through that environment for months at a time is simply unsafe.
Director Thomas McDonald Backs Residents’ Concerns
RDEK Electoral Area A Director Thomas McDonald says the concerns being raised by residents are legitimate and deserve serious attention.
“The concerns being raised about safety, traffic volume, the lack of shoulders, school bus stops, cyclists, pedestrians, and the overall suitability of Dicken Road to handle highway traffic are completely valid,” McDonald said in a message to residents.
He acknowledged that Dicken Road is not just another transportation corridor.
“Residents have pointed out that Dicken Road is a place where people live their day-to-day lives — families walking dogs, kids riding bikes, people commuting to work, and neighbours out for a walk,” he said. “It is understandable that residents are concerned about how a significant increase in traffic could affect safety in an area like this.”
McDonald says he has forwarded those concerns directly to the Ministry and will continue advocating for the community as the project moves forward.
Provincial Decision, Local Impact
While the issue is playing out locally, the decision ultimately rests with the provincial government.
Highway 3 and surrounding rural roadways fall under the authority of the BC Ministry of Transportation and Transit, not local governments. McDonald said his role is to ensure that residents’ concerns are clearly communicated to the province and that safety remains the top priority.
“Community safety must be the primary consideration throughout this project,” he said.
The Ministry has indicated it will soon release additional information outlining how traffic will be managed and what safety measures would be put in place during construction.
Residents can sign up for project updates through the RDEK Hosmer email group: https://www.rdek.bc.ca/about/email_group_sign_up
Call for a Temporary Highway Bypass
Residents opposing the detour are urging the province to take a different approach — one that has been used many times before on Highway 3.
Instead of diverting traffic onto a local road, they are asking the Ministry to construct a temporary bypass around the Hartley Creek bridge construction site so traffic can remain within the highway corridor.
Supporters say that approach would protect residents living along Dicken Road while maintaining the reliability of Highway 3, one of the primary east–west transportation routes in southern British Columbia.
A petition calling on the Ministry to abandon the Dicken Road detour and construct a bypass has also begun circulating online: https://www.change.org/
For residents who live along the road, the issue is not abstract. It is about what happens when highway traffic is suddenly placed into the middle of a neighbourhood.
And for residents in the area, the message is simple: Dicken Road should remain a place where people live — not a temporary highway.
