Commuter feels Highway Hotline needs to wake up earlier

People heading out onto the highway in winter are always encouraged to check the Highway Hotline to see what the conditions are like on their drive — but what if the online map hasn’t been updated in nearly eight hours?

That’s the problem Krissy Longeau said she has run into after the last two snowfalls in the Regina area. She commutes into the city from Indian Head every day along the Trans-Canada Highway, leaving her home around 6 a.m.

Overnight Thursday, the Regina area got about four centimetres of snow, so Friday morning, Longeau went to check the hotline but found it hadn’t been updated since 9 o’clock the night before.

Longeau doesn’t think that’s how the service should work.

“It’s not that I expect it to be up to date to the minute but there was, what, an eight-hour lapse. Well, it just kind of defeats the whole purpose of even using it,” she said.

“This is a service that’s supposed to be there so that you know what you’re getting yourself into.”

Longeau said she likes that, in the Highway Hotline map, you can click on each small stretch of highway and it’ll tell what the conditions are like in more detail. She said she just wants to know what’s going on.

“Maybe I need to give myself more time,” she said. “That’s usually a big thing; that’s why I usually check at 5:30 a.m., because if I leave at 6, and it hasn’t been updated until 6, well, then it’s already too late, I haven’t given myself enough time.”

According to a spokesperson for the Ministry of Highways, the online map is updated at 6:30 a.m., 10 a.m., and 3 p.m. every day. Employees, often snow plow operators, will send information about the highways back to the office and then the conditions will be updated on the map.

The spokesperson said the conditions can be updated more often if changes in conditions on the highways warrant it. So he explained that, if conditions haven’t been updated, it’s because the conditions haven’t changed since the last update.