Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca has ordered ministry staff to take a “second look” at the kind of highway barriers that will be installed along a 136-kilometre stretch of Highway 401 west of London to Tilbury that has seen five fatal crashes in six months.

“Following the Minister’s meeting with Allyson Storey, MPP Rick Nicholls, and other safety advocates at the legislature . . . he has asked ministry staff to take a second look to make sure that we’re choosing the best option for the new median barrier, as well as look for ways to implement the barriers sooner. We are working on these options now,” MTO spokesperson Liane Bloxam said.

“The minister has . . . asked staff to take a second look to make sure that we’re choosing the best option for the new median barrier.”

Storey and her supporters have been pushing for concrete medians, as opposed to cable barriers.

Storey said Tuesday she is frustrated and disappointed because she feels the government is giving out mixed signals.

Storey met with Del Duca Oct. 4 at Queen’s Park.

“The minister told us a decision had not been made yet,” she said. “The minister said, ‘We haven’t decided.’ He dialled it back.”

Storey feels the government is looking for reasons to justify cable barriers, the cheaper and easier option.

She was drawn into the fight when her friend, Londoner Sarah Payne, and Payne’s daughter, Freya, were killed in a median crossover crash this summer near Dutton.

She says at this point she has a “glimmer of hope” the government will change its course.

Though her original goal was to make sure “Chatham-Kent and Elgin County lives matter,” Storey said most of the local drivers she knows have stopped using that stretch of Highway 401.

“We’re advocating for all the other drivers,” she said.

Early Tuesday morning, Chatham-Kent OPP say a westbound truck lost control, crashed through a guardrail, rolled onto its side and came to rest on a bridge embankment beside the 401.

“He blew through a guardrail, which is one of the barriers they use here,” Storey said.

Concrete barriers were put in east of London along the 401 in the wake of frequent crossover crashes a generation ago, but not along the highway’s western stretch.

danbrown@nationalpost.com

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