The provincial government has set late 2024 as the completion date for a state-of-the-art commercial vehicle inspection station adjacent to Hwy16 in Thornhill now that it has chosen Prince George-based IDL Projects Inc. as its contractor.
The company’s bid was preferred for the project which has an overall cost of $34.2 million that’s being financed with $15 million from the federal government and $19.2 million from the provincial government.
Site preparation for the station to be built in the area of Novotny St. and Kirkaldy St. has already taken place and a companion sensor pad that will transmit truck information was placed underneath a section of Hwy16 nearby last year.
Taken together, the entire project is called weigh-in-motion such that trucks won’t necessarily have to stop as they did at the previous inspection station where Hwy16 and Hwy37 meet and can keep travelling.
That old inspection station was dismantled to make room for the roundabout which replaced the four-way stop where the two highways meet.
“This technology checks the height, weight and safety credentials of vehicles registered with the province,” indicated a provincial government release of the new station’s technological attributes.
“Other technologies will include automatic vehicle-identification to verify a vehicle’s credentials and allow it to bypass the inspection station if certain requirements are met, as well as over-height detectors and a tire anomaly and classification system, which improves safety by detecting missing or underinflated tires.”
The new station will have an area large enough for short term and overnight truck parking and flush toilets with running water during office hours and pit toilets when the flush variety is closed.
There will also be refrigeration unit plug-ins and wifi.
To date, B.C. has four inspections stations equipped with weigh-in-motion technology and seven inspection stations equipped with automatic vehicle-identification technology.