City votes to have external review into buried Red Hill Valley Parkway findings

The city will get an external review to see what led to a buried report about the safety of the Red Hill Valley Parkway. But what that review will look like — and how public it will be — remains to be seen.

Hamilton city council voted to do some sort of review into a 2013 report that showed friction on some parts of the highway was below ideal safety levels. It's getting legal advice on whether that will be a judicial inquiry or some other sort of external review.

Brad Clark, Ward 9 (upper Stoney Creek) councillor, said he prefers a judicial inquiry because that means the process will be public. And people want to know how the key report was buried for six years.

An auditor general's report, he says, would simply be about the process, and how the city can make sure it doesn't happen again.

A judicial inquiry "can also assign blame, or indicate if there was some malfeasance or wrongdoing, and that's something the auditor general can't do," he said. 

"The auditor general says, 'OK, it happened and what policies can fix this.' In this case, I think the public wants to know everything."

Council made the decision after a marathon 10-hour meeting that included five hours of in camera deliberation.

This came after news last week that a 2013 report from Tradewind Scientific never came to council and was never revealed to the public. 

That report used UK standards to test the slipperiness of the road. It found, in some spots, the friction of the Red Hill Valley Parkway was well below those standards. It also recommended the city test the friction again, which it never did to the extent that Tradewind did in 2013.

Since that was revealed, city council has voted to reduce the speed limit from 90 km/h to 80 from Greenhill to the QEW. Signs will be installed early next week, and the city has asked Hamilton police to beef up enforcement.

Staff also got another consultant, CIMA+, to examine the 2013 report. The city also expedited plans to resurface the highway. It's already been implementing other safety measures. 

It will now examine what other measures are required, including possibly widening the road.

'I have always felt perplexed'

For years, grieving families of people killed on the highway have been demanding upgrades to the highway, including barriers and medians.

At Wednesday's meeting, Clark read a letter by David Smosarski, whose daughter Olivia died in a crash on the Red Hill in 2015.

"I have always felt perplexed by the cause of (the accident)," Smosarski said in his letter. "To this day, my family does not have any answers on why the car my daughter was a passenger in lost control that night.

'Something inherently wrong'

"The Hamilton police accident reconstruction team stated the car Olivia was in skidded across the parkway as if 'on ice.' My family has always felt there was something inherently wrong with the surface of the parkway."

Also at Wednesday's meeting, which wrapped up around 3 a.m., council voted to make reports from 2015 and 2018 public.

The 2015 report by CIMA+ was aimed at reducing the number and severity of collisions on the road. The city has implemented most of those recommendations. The other was the January 2019 report that resulted from the discovery of the Tradewind report. 

That came from Sam Merulla, Ward 4 (east end) councillor, who said the road is safe "if used as prescribed. We really caution people to watch the speeding."

Mayor Fred Eisenberger said the goal is to get "a clear and impartial answer. We're all in the position here where we want to get to that point."