The province will look into possible short-term safety improvements on a South Island stretch of Trans-Canada Highway in the wake of two fatal crashes in a matter of weeks.
The latest collision happened Sunday near the Leigh Road overpass. A 24-year-old Nanaimo man died from his injuries after crashing head-on with another vehicle.
On Jan. 8, a head-on crash on an undivided curve of the highway between Leigh Road and West Shore Parkway killed one driver and send another to hospital with serious injuries.
The crashes have prompted calls from Langford's mayor and West Shore RCMP for additional barriers to be installed on the stretch of highway.
"I think that's an appropriate response is to have barriers put up, yes," Const. Nancy Saggar of West Shore RCMP told CTV News Monday.
On Tuesday, the Ministry of Transportation issued a statement saying it was "well aware" of the tragic collisions and was working with investigators to determine what caused them.
"Once we have this information, ministry staff will look at the potential for short-term engineering options to improve safety," the ministry said. "Any consideration of short-term improvements will need to complement existing long-term design work that has already been completed, which includes four-laning this two-kilometre section of highway between Leigh Road and West Shore Parkway and adding median barriers."
The ministry said it anticipates moving forward with four-laning the section of highway and adding barriers now that the McKenzie Interchange project is nearing completion, and a Malahat Village Safety Improvement project has been completed.
West Shore RCMP say there have been 79 collisions in the area since 2017, including 40 crashes in the section with no barriers.
