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Highway to Paradise

After four years the Sea to Sky Highway is ready to roll
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Doug Phillips has done a lot of driving in the last year.

He, wife Sheila and kitty Germaine have travelled by motor home across the U.S. and Canada fulfilling a lifetime dream. Part of that dream was to drive the Sea to Sky Highway.

"We knew we wanted to come this way so we timed it so the road would be mostly finished," said Doug sipping a cup of Joe at a local breakfast spot recently.

"We weren't disappointed. We have driven all over and the views and mountains on that highway, to see the sea that way and the colours of the leaves, then finally pulling into Whistler, well, driving just doesn't get better."

Said Sheila: "And the road is wide and safe. I think a lot more people will come visit now."

Attracting more people to Whistler, which accounts for 17 per cent of the Provinces' tourism revenues, was one of the reasons for improving the highway.

And then there was the safety issue. Sometimes called "The Highway of Death," the Sea to Sky Highway has had about 300 accidents a year annually.

But the real catalyst to getting the job underway came when the International Olympic Committee said the Sea to Sky Highway needed to be upgraded before the 2010 Games for Vancouver's bid to host the Olympics to be successful.

It wasn't an easy project. There was no doubt that the years of construction - work began in 2003 - would create frustration for residents and visitors alike. From the start tourism officials and other stakeholders worked with contractors to make sure that closures did not occur at peak tourism and travel times, while a good part of the work happened in the small hours of the morning.

"They did a really good job of timing the road closures so they wouldn't interfere with the key travel times," said Arlene Schieven, vice-president of marketing for Tourism Whistler.

"It was all done with tourism in mind which was really great for us."

Keeping traffic moving throughout construction was central to the construction plan said Rob Ahola, director of highway construction for the Province.

"One of the key goals of the project was to minimize disruptions so we had traffic management requirements embedded in the contract and the contractor has to live up to those," he said.

"As you can imagine if we went into the mountain's side and made large blasts the road would be closed down for considerable amounts of time so that forced us to build out toward the water side... from Horsehoe Bay to Squamish."

Keeping lanes open to traffic at all times pushed road builders and engineers to be their most creative.

That is why you will find long stretches of new road on mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) and rock walls and on so-called "half bridges." Half bridges support only two lanes of the four-lane improved highway and are constructed on some narrow cliff sections where the height is too great to build MSE walls, or the horizontal clearance is limited by the railway below. In some cases the support columns are cantilevered out from the cliffs.

"What you don't see are the rock anchors, and they are large steel anchors that are embedded and drilled into the rock and then that sticks out of the rock and then casts into the foundation of walls and structures," said Ahola by way of explanation.

"There are thousands of these rock anchors that are used to make sure everything is attached securely to these rock foundations and that is essentially how you manage these structures."

Much of this was designed on the fly with engineers first having to establish what they could anchor into before going with a MSE wall or the cantilevered solution.

The builders were also careful to use as much of the rock they were blasting as possible when creating the MSE walls.

Tourism Whistler's Schieven believes the upgrades to the highway will positively impact the resort business. By shaving even a few minutes off the travel time it can make the journey more attractive to rubber-tire traffic from the U.S. and elsewhere in B.C., as well as to those who fly into Vancouver.

The surfacing, wide lanes, wider shoulders, side and centre rumble strips, barriers, highly reflective road lines and other safety devices are also a bonus for travelers not used to driving in winter road conditions.

"From an image point of view you can imagine that now we have a world class highway and it is joining two world class destinations - Vancouver and Whistler," she said.

Whistler Chamber of Commerce president Fiona Famulak agrees. "There is no question that the highway is one of the major legacies of the Games and anything that allows our guests to travel easily and more often to and from Whistler is a great thing obviously for our business community," she said.

As the highway has neared completion and the travel time has been cut Famulak said businesses have noticed an increase in the number of day-trippers to the resort.

"I have spoken to... so many guests who are here for the day, who drive up from the Lower Mainland and experience Whistler and what it has to offer and drive back home again," she said.

"So I think we are seeing the benefit of the highway right now and I think that can only improve..."

Whistler Mayor Ken Melamed is looking forward to the day construction is over.

"Since I've lived here (1988) there has always been some construction going on," he said.

"We hopefully will not need to see any construction for the foreseeable future and we will have relatively unencumbered travel, and that will be wonderful."

While welcoming the road improvement Melamed won't go as far as to say that it will boost tourism - "I am reluctant to make a prediction," he said.

He points to the 2000-2001 season where there were 2.3 million skier visits.

"That was back at the old highway," he said.

"Yes, people like an easier and shorter drive but it is not the determining factor in the success of the resort."

There is no doubt the vistas of the drive are now more compelling with the cantilevered sections of the road between Squamish and Vancouver and the general clearing of roadside foliage.

"It has opened up the views and provided a much more relaxing travel experience form Vancouver," said Melamed.

But the road is also a double-edged sword in some ways. While it may be loaded with safety devices and has cut travel time it will also increase the number of cars travelling, thereby increasing greenhouse gas emissions. And people are driving faster than before.

Melamed, long a proponent of sustainable travel alternatives, worries that the new highway will make it even less likely that people will take public transit.

"You will not be successful in shifting people to public transportation when you have a very easy, uncongested highway option," he said.

Ministry of Transportation statistics predict that by 2025 there will be a 56 per cent increase in the number of cars travelling between Squamish and Whistler - that's 12,000 cars a day. In 25 years the population in the Sea to Sky corridor is set to double.

And the highway has already been closed for hours for fatal road accidents in which speed was a factor.

Police have clocked some lightning-fast speeds on the new highway - including a motorcyclist going 250 km/h in a 90km/h zone.

Though the trend for speeding on the road is going up there are no new resources to manage enforcement, and that is a concern, said Melamed.

"In the absence of traffic enforcement people are going to drive at whatever speed they want, and there is only one way to control that speed and that is to have police on the road - and we don't have the budgets for that," he said.

"We have to keep the speed limit where it is and find new ways to get drivers to drive responsibly."

 

Pemberton

The Sea to Sky Highway upgrades may not reach all the way to Pemberton (the project stops at Function Junction) but that isn't stopping the village - one of the fastest growing communities in Canada - from enjoying the benefits.

"I think the people here are beginning to understand what this will mean," said Pemberton Mayor Jordan Sturdy.

It is common for Pemberton's close to 3,000 residents to travel to Squamish and Vancouver to shop and do business.

And while the last four years have been frustrating with delays, closures and just plain slow-going as the highway was constructed, now, said Sturdy, the improvements are paying off.

"Pemberton is really close now to a major metropolitan centre, far closer than it has ever been," he said recalling a recent drive from Vancouver to Pemberton.

"It is amazing how quickly we have forgotten what that old highway was like. It was narrow with no shoulders, there is a cliff going down on one side and a cliff going up on the other and I can understand why people in the past felt it was a white-knuckle drive."

Today more and more people are taking to the Sea to Sky Highway for a leisure drive and to enjoy the sights and experiences along the way.

"We are seeing it already when we see the motorcycle traffic coming through Pemberton this summer," said Sturdy, who owns and operates a popular destination farm for produce and home-baked goods, and is promoting the new highway as an asset for his region on Pemberton's new economic development website.

"Our infrastructure, both for information infrastructure and transportation infrastructure is top of the line now and that opens up our community to opportunity from those who feel they may need to be more connected," he said.

"They can look at Pemberton as an alternative. I personally think it is going to be a great thing."

Pemberton's physical geography means it is likely that the area could not grow much past 10,000 in population.

Sturdy admits that it would have been nice to see a couple of the problem areas of the highway between Whistler and Pemberton addressed in the upgrade.

But, he said: "It is really not a particularly onerous drive. It is not like the (Cheakamus) canyon was or Howe Sound."

 

Horsehoe Bay

Heading north from Vancouver it's finally clear that Horseshoe Bay Village is open for business.

The highway signs tell visitors and locals alike how to get to the village, whether it's to pick up B.C. ferry foot passengers or to enjoy the legendary food at Troll's Restaurant.

However, the same can't be said for Sea to Sky Highway travellers coming south on the upgraded road.

In fact, this past August, Troll's general manager Holly Kemp purchased her own $200 sign and put it up on the highway to make sure people knew they could get to the village.

"There are 16,000 cars which travel on that highway every day and they had no idea how to get down to the village itself," said Kemp who is talking with provincial ministry of transportation officials about the issue.

"The service and attraction sign is the last sign that you see there, but then it is instantaneous that you have to exit and so there is not enough time for people to do so," said Kemp.

She is also concerned that the exit - which is a steep, sharp corner - could become a likely spot for traffic accidents, but at the same time she is hopeful that the upgraded road will bring out more day-trippers who will come to Horseshoe Bay and experience its eateries, galleries and ambiance.

But, she said, "It is hard for me to gauge whether we are going to see more or less traffic."

Asked if the highway upgrades had resulted in more challenges than benefits, West Vancouver's manager of roads and transportation Brent Dozzie answered, "Yes, I would say that."

The district's position has always been that a tunnel should have been built at Eagleridge Bluffs, not just to protect the environment but because it would be safer.

Dozzie said district officials will be watching to see how this winter goes with the new higher alignment of the highway more prone to snow, ice and fog.

There are also discussions underway with provincial officials about the traffic congestion that is now occurring on busy weekends where highway traffic and ferry traffic come together heading into Vancouver.

However, the safety improvements have cut the number of head-on collisions and fatalities from accidents dramatically, said Srgt. Tim Kravjanski of the West Vancouver Police.

"That is a good thing," he said.

But the speeds people are driving at have increased dramatically with motorcycles being the worst offenders.

"People are thinking now that we have all these barriers I can drive like a maniac and I am fine," said Kravjanski.

"I think a lot of the time they don't realize the level of danger they are putting themselves into.

"And we are still seeing these speeds when it is raining."

Police enforcement has stepped up to deal with speeders.

At the same time there is no doubt the highway is less stressful to drive.

"From a driver's point of view it is considerably better," said Lions Bay resident and political pundit Rafe Mair.

"The way it was before it was an utterly dangerous road at the best of times. But when we had rain and that sort of thing it was just a guess at what side of the road the oncoming car was.

"It is much improved that way."

 

Highway by the numbers:

• 6,000 - The number of new jobs created throughout the province as a result of economic activity generated along the Sea-to-Sky corridor.

 

• $300 million - Amount the improved highway will increase provincial GDP by up to 2025.

 

• 1983 - The ministry conducted a conceptual study of the Vancouver-Squamish corridor 26 years ago which included the existing highway route and three alternative routes that were identified.

 

• 2003 - The year construction began.

 

• 2009 - By the end of this year, the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project will be completed and will provide:

- Four lanes from Horseshoe Bay to Lions Bay

- Two-, three- and four-lane sections from north of Lions Bay to Murrin Park

- Four lanes from north of Murrin Park through Squamish

- Three lanes from Squamish to Whistler

 

• $600 million - Overall cost of the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement Project.

 

• $400 million - The approximate amount of the project being undertaken by S2S Transportation Group through a 25-year performance-based contract to design, build, finance and operate the improvements to the highway.

 

• $52 million - The investment in equipment made by the major contractor, Peter Kiewit Sons, for the project.

 

• 13,800 - Average number of vehicles per day travelling between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish along the Sea-to-Sky Highway.

 

• 22,000 - Forecasted average number of vehicles per day traveling between Horseshoe Bay and Squamish by 2025 (62 per cent increase).

 

• 8,261 - Average number of vehicles per day travelling between Squamish and Whistler along the Sea-to-Sky Highway or Highway 99.

 

• 12,000 - Forecasted average number of vehicles per day traveling between Squamish and Whistler by 2025 (56 per cent increase).

 

• 25 - The number of years it should take for the population to almost double along the Sea-to-Sky Highway corridor.

 

• 17 - The resort Municipality of Whistler accounts for 17 per cent of the province's tourism revenues.

 

• 3,317,000 - The number of cubic metres (including 2,121,000 cubic metres of rock) of excavated material along the corridor to the end of 2008.

 

• 260,000 - The number of tonnes of asphalt paving along the corridor (to end of 2008).

 

• 47,000 - The number of cubic metres of concrete used along the corridor (to end of 2008).

 

• 7 - The number of awards the Sea-to-Sky Highway Improvement project has received, including a 2005 Gold Award for innovation from the Canadian Council of Public-Private Partnerships and "Best Global Project to Reach Financial Completion" 2006 Public-Private Finance Awards in London, England.

 

 



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