British Columbia’s ombudsperson says a decades-old portion of the Transportation Act has holes big enough that a logging truck could drive through.
Jay Chalke says it’s “unjust” that a section in the act allows some roads on private property to be automatically considered public if government money is spent on maintenance, without the property owner’s knowledge or consent.
A report from Chalke’s office highlights cases where an owner was surprised that she couldn’t stop logging trucks from using the road through her property, while another thought he was using a public road to get to his property, but when it was blocked the Transportation Ministry said it couldn’t help because the road was private.