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Sea to Sky Highway project entering pre-design phase

Open house meetings planned to show options, address community and safety concerns Local communities will get their first look at detailed options for the $600 million Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project in the coming months as the Ministry of Tra

Open house meetings planned to show options, address community and safety concerns

Local communities will get their first look at detailed options for the $600 million Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project in the coming months as the Ministry of Transportation enters its pre-design phase. Improving highway safety is the main priority of the project, followed by reliability – keeping the highway open – and traffic issues.

Open house meetings have already been held in West Vancouver and Lions Bay as the province continues to gather feedback on different highway options from residents and stakeholders. The next major open house is expected to be held in Squamish once the different options and costs are formally laid out by the designers.

Over the past 18 months the project design team has held more than 350 meetings in the corridor with various stakeholders.

The pre-design phase will provide communities with their first detailed look at the project that goes beyond the original concepts presented.

"We’ve had meetings on the concepts, but we haven’t gotten to a higher level of detail yet (in Squamish) where people can see what the options are for access, or how different options might look on the ground," said Peter Milburn, the director of the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project.

"We will continue to have these meetings with other communities as well, like Black Tusk and Pinecrest and Whistler, and there are ongoing meetings planned with Britannia and Furry Creek."

At the Lions Bay open house on Feb. 28 the majority of participants favoured an option to build a $130 million four-lane section of highway that bypasses Horseshoe Bay. This option was slightly more expensive than an option to twin the exiting highway, but cheaper and more effective than a $170 million two-way tunnel option. There was also some discussion about creating a noise shed to shield homes from the sound of the highway, as well as different options for the Calvin Grove and Brunswick intersections.

"I would say it went very well, we had a lot of feedback," said Milburn.

"There wasn’t a consensus on all issues, but we did collect the feedback and will put the information in a consultation summary report – I believe that report has just been completed, and should be available soon."

Some of the requests made by Lions Bay residents, including the creation of a noise shed, have already been rejected because of the costs involved.

"We did some work with the technical liaison committee and costed out how much (the noise shed) would be, and that just wasn’t affordable so we didn’t table it as an option," said Milburn.

While the project team will try to accommodate the concerns of residents wherever possible, the first priority is to meet provincial highway safety standards. Options that are too costly or that don’t make sense technically won’t be considered, and won’t be included in future open house discussions.

"(The open houses) are not an opportunity necessarily to vote on options, they’re a way to consult with the community, hear what the issues are and get a feeling of how to proceed – but the decision still rests with the provincial government," said Milburn.

Because of the geographic obstacles along the existing highway, there is limited leeway when making improvements in many sections of the road. Those areas have few options available, if any, and the public’s main concern in those areas is generally related to traffic and the impact of construction.

The overall safety of the highway is also a major consideration for the public, especially after a head-on collision on Jan. 31 claimed the lives of seven Squamish residents. The accident occurred on a straight section of the road north of Garibaldi Highlands, and authorities believe that one or both cars drifted over the centre line into the oncoming lane.

"I think it would be fair to say I had quite a number of phone calls and letters pertaining to the importance of median barriers as one of the treatments for the highway, and it is one of the considerations we’re looking at," said Milburn. "Prior to the accident it had already been a consideration for some communities, to have a physical separation of traffic.

"There are other issues though that need to be looked at. Median barriers only stop one particular type of accident… and that’s the head-on collision, but they won’t stop whatever caused the driver to veer in the first place. We should use it as one of the tools, but we also have to look at things like increasing sight distance, widening the shoulders, the curvature of the road, having a consistent cross section, the super-elevation (of the road). All of those factors have to be looked at in conjunction with one tool, and that’s the median barrier."

A barrier will require a wider highway than what is currently planned and will add costs to the highway improvement, but will be considered in high-risk areas along with other safety options available, Milburn says.

"There are issues of sight distance and how far you can see, there are more passing opportunities to relieve frustrated drivers, wider shoulders to allow for the correction of errant vehicles so if you accidentally cross the white line you won’t end up in the ditch. There are roadside hazards, areas where vehicles that do have accidents are immediately into the rocks with no time for recovery. Those are some of the things we’re looking at.

"The goal is to have consistent driver expectations on the highway, not designing long tangents with sharp curves at the end, but to create more of a rolling grade where drivers can become accustomed to the road with braking and accelerating all the time."

The project is using a tool called collision prediction modeling that pinpoints the areas where collisions have and could occur based on a safety model and British Columbian highway standards. When potential accident areas are identified, the input is given back to the designers who will look at ways to mitigate the risks using different safety tools.

"The number one emphasis, our goal, is to make this highway safer and bring it into the provincial average," said Milburn. "Right now it’s higher than the provincial average, both for the severity and frequency of accidents, and we’re going to bring that down as a result of this $600 million in expenditures."

Keeping the highway open when things like motor vehicle accidents and rock slides occur is also a priority, and slope stabilization efforts are a large part of the project, says Milburn.

Creating a faster highway is not the goal, he adds, but increased carrying capacity around communities where traffic builds up will help to cut commute times.

In the Whistler area, the Pinecrest/Black Tusk Community Advisory Group has already made their support clear for one of the three options considered for that stretch of highway. They would like to see the highway realigned along the west side of Daisy Lake, and use the existing highway in that area as a service road with one point of entry onto the highway.

"I have personally inspected the path of the proposed realignment of the Highway with the ministry people and am convinced this is a feasible plan to protect residents of our community," said Nelson Bastien, chair of the Black Tusk Village Council.

They already have the support of the Squamish-Lillooet Regional District, federal Member of Parliament John Reynolds, provincial MLA Ted Nebbeling, and a petition signed by residents in Black Tusk and Pinecrest.

The other options on the table for this section of highway include a plan to see the roadway moved slightly to the east and a lower elevation. While the advisory group said they could accept this option, they are opposed to the third option, to widen the existing highway to three lanes. They believe this would compromise Pinecrest’s water supply in Retta Lake, while making it more dangerous for members of those communities and visitors to Brew Creek Lodge to turn onto the busy highway.

A meeting will be held on April 6 with representatives from the Ministry of Transportation to discuss these options, and to present a signed petition from residents calling for the creation of a Daisy Lake bypass.

The Whistler Off-Road Cycling Association has also participated in preliminary meetings to monitor the impact of the highways on bike trails, and to voice their support for the creation of bike lanes along the highway.

Milburn says the bike lane issue has already been taken into consideration with wider shoulders along the highway between communities.

"We’re making it wider at the grade so we have room, but it won’t be a separated bike way like in Whistler. Something like that may be possible in Squamish, but not in the areas between cities where the shoulders will be widened," said Milburn.

To stay on top of the design process and the open house meetings planned for the corridor, Milburn says residents should visit the Web site at www.seatoskyimprovements.ca. Notices of public meetings will also be posted in local newspapers.