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I'm not sure what many cyclists are thinking. When I bike I stay off main roads at all costs. The way I figure it - if I wouldn't walk somewhere I certainly wouldn't ride a bike. Some cycle group recently petitioned the Alberta government to add a cycle lane to a highway (I forget the details). They were politely told that highways aren't the place for cyclists and they should try raising money to build a cycle path. Seriously I wish they'd do the same in Calgary. There are far too many green initiatives and anti-car movements - and that just makes it dangerous for cyclists and traffic. The place for bikes is off road. Sorry about all the AB references I make. I live in Alberta but I have a cabin in the Shuswap and travel a lot in BC so I'm well aware of the road issues in BC. Anyway - isn't there a trans-Canada trail being built? I'm not sure if it follows the TCH. That seems like a much safer way to cycle. |
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The TCH isn't some remote road out in the middle of nowhere. It's the main road link to the rest of Canada. It's heavily used and is the lifeblood of much of BC. Yes, to someone in Vancouver or Victoria it's out of the way. But that's the same frustration we have with someone in Ottawa thinking Western Canada is out of the way. It simply isn't true. The reason they have to focus on the dangerous sections and bridges first is that most of the bridges are long past their lifespan and the dangerous sections have been almost completely ignored. I wish the premier would drive to Calgary and back for her meeting with Alberta's premier. She'd see how bad the highway is compared to Alberta. And yes - even in Alberta the TCH leading to BC is out of the way for most people (but heavily used by tourists and truckers). Not that Alberta has much to brag about - it took 40 years to twin the highway once they decided to go ahead. BC is unfortunately on the 200 year plan. And politicians seem quite adept at claiming they're upgrading the highway. They're careful not to release a plan or schedule. Even now I don't think she announced anything that wasn't announced before. Sure - they've fixed a few horrible sections. But that's hardly something to be proud about yet - given how little is actually being fixed and no schedule or plan is in place. I wish we had a politician who would commit to twinning it by a certain date - say 2025. The politicians of old never would have finished the initial highway if they were as unfocused as modern politicians. Check with environmental groups about the highway in Banff. Many of them were shocked at how much better the highway is for wildlife after the upgrade. They took the opportunity to correct old mistakes with rivers & fish habitat, bridge heights for ducks, fencing and over/underpasses for animals etc. Hey, even look at Golden & the animal over/underpasses they just built. It's cool seeing Big Horn sheep actually living on the highway - but hardly what we should be allowing in BC. This road isn't just some park though. It's a vital transportation link - even in the remote sections since these remote sections lead to the rest of the country. |
^ LOL... I grew up in the remote inner regions of BC. I know all about the highways. The TCH is a busy highway yes but most don't drive all the way from Van to Alberta... as suggested earlier in the thread. I drive into the Okanagan at least five or six times a year from Edmonton... Sometimes down the Yellowhead, sometimes on the # 1, yes it is busy, no it is not disastrous.
Seems like 4 laning just allows the idiots to drive like idiots anyways .... I think the biggest problem has always been that Albertans' can't drive in BC! :D Quote:
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*edit... Im just blown away by peoples short sightedness. just thinking back on the last time I drove it and seeing cars that had swerved out or the countless tires that have blown out or even all the rocks that have flown up chipped and cracked my windshield.... so many hazards that could end so badly! |
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I probably wouldn't bike on the TCH, but know tots who have... for the most part the route seems pretty good. You'd want to be on your game though |
Blah blah blah.... It would only take one dick to go speeding around a corner, loose control and wipe out then your happy little bike ride is over
Personally I dont think bikes should be on any highway but for sure high mountain highways with sudden weather changes, sharp corners, no shoulders. its one thing if someone wants to take a risk and do something idiotic but for a parent to put their kids in that situation is reckless! |
^ The world is full of risks. You could get run down by a bus tomorrow. Or a pre-cast panel could fall off a building and crush you. I prefer to enjoy experiences rather than worrying all the time
Good cyclists understand risks and make calculated decisions. They're also always on the defensive. I've enjoyed many highway rides throughout BC and Alberta... never had a problem. Biking in the city is far more dangerous IMO |
^ Without looking at statistics, I'm reasonably certain one's chance of dying in the highway is far greater in a motor vehicle than on a bike.
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edit I agree cycling in the city is also very dangerous.... I would also have issue with a parent allowing their kids biking down granville or broadway etc... go find a friggin bike path instead If you guys want to take the risk thats one thing... my point was taking your 10 y/o kids through the TCH on bikes is reckless... and that just bc "they are aware of the risks" isnt much of an argument |
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That said, it looks like upgrade projects will continue from hereon in. Some of the projects: 1. Monte Creek/Pritchard/Hoffmans Bluff; 2. Phase 4 of Kicking Horse Canyon; And some others that BC MoT mentioned today: 3. Replacement of Malakwa Bridge and associated twinning; 4. Replacement of North Fork Bridge and associated twinning; (both of these projects are west of Revelstoke) 5. Twinning east of Donald to Golden; |
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If you mean freeway standard then yeah I wouldn't doubt it would cost a fortune in grade separating many low traffic count intersections. |
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Can you show me a link where these were mentioned?? Good to see they are generally targeting bridge structures, therefore making future twinning more accessible. |
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Heck, the SFPR in Metro Vancouver, which primarily runs along much more accessible topography, is only 40km long with a design speed of just 80km h and it is costing nearly 1 billion. |
I think a good chunk of that cost would be land appropriations though, lots of private land had to be cut through and infringed onto.
And it's not like the SFPR had a very easy construction area either. Outside of the Tsawassen area its primarily built along river silt which may seem easy but probably needs a fair amount of preloading and extra stability support. I do agree though, twinning through to the AB border is going to cost many billions. |
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I know it's a common myth (hahaha) that Albertan's can't drive in BC but for me it's the opposite. Many BC drivers in BC can't drive. Too many BC drivers use the TCH as a local road - and see no need to go the speed limit when they're just heading into town to pick up some supplies. Bottom line - the highway needs serious attention. I'm glad it's finally on the radar - it's just sad that the pace is so slow. I know it costs a fortune, but really the economic benefits of a good road and the economic benefits of a busy construction industry pay for themselves. I'm excited to hear more projects were announced. I'll have to go check that out. |
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The actual distance between Kamloops and the AB border is ~450 km (BC MoT - ~350 km + Parks Canada - ~100 km). And many expensive sections therein, including: 1. National Parks; 2. Existing snowshed replacements plus new snowsheds/rocksheds; 3. New bridge structures; 4. Many areas with geotechnical problems; 5. Environmental problems; Some of these matters are discussed in contemplated segmental studies contained within this old 1996 BC MoT report analyzing the corridor. http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/kickinghorse..._mgmt_plan.pdf |
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Awesome, thank you.
And yes, I hope the long term plan has the entire Salmon Arm area bypassed. Much of the highway can be upgraded properly via twinning, but there are a few sections where entirely new alignments should be done. |
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I would hope the Feds match these funds at the very least as this is a national highway. |
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http://www.revelstoketimesreview.com...ml?mobile=true As for a Salmon Arm bypass, that's decades away even if they select it as the preferred option given the extreme cost. I seem to recall the alternative as a single lane bridge with an 80km/hr speed limit connecting west of Canoe. |
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I was also including the 100 km in the National Parks. While National Parks upgrading will be 100% federal dollars, they are still federal dollars that must be taken from BC's overall federal infrastructure allocation, which takes away from other areas. That's what also happened with the Banff twinning in terms of AB's federal infrastructure share. BTW, after Banff is completed to the AB/BC border, look to the feds to continue westward into Yoho NP. At least to Field as a first phase and down the road eventually connecting to the KHC making a continuous 4-lane divided highway past Golden to Donald. The Shuswap Lake Crossing between Ford and Canoe will be one of the last projects on the list IMHO and will probably be 4 lanes when undertaken. |
I agree with your assessments stingray.
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Does anyone know why they didn't just continue the Coquihalla all the way to Alberta? I know it wasn't part of the project but it seems like a natural extension that could really speed up the trip and have better alignments than the TCH. A reasonable toll road could be built in 10 years couldn't it? (I still think the TCH should be twinned, but another highway wouldn't hurt).
Perhaps there were just too many parks on the way to Alberta? |
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Three valley Gap is brutal, I see them filling in part of the water along there, cause BC doesn't build tunnels unless the alternative is literally impossible. I read on the Banff website that they've been talking about twinning to field for awhile. The website says that a short transition zone of four laning into Yoho (like less than 1 km from what I gather) is supposed to be part of current twinning under a proposed amendment. The Shuswap lake crossing will be a mess too because Salmon Arm is the Nimbiest place I have ever seen lol. The area around Canoe beach is relatively secluded at this point, and I'm sure the locals will be up in arms. The Malakwa and North Fork Bridge projects have been posted on the MoT website, so I guess it's official! http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/highwayprojects/Hwy1/index.htm |
Seems like BC MoT is really going on the cheap side.
- The twinning will feature 5 at-grade intersections in total - which is not surprising. - No grass median and again, no median barrier. The existing grass median will immediately taper and disappear at the transition into project zone. - Total twinning is 6.1km, although the gap between the two segment is only 4km.. I wonder how much they save by building two transition zones instead of just finishing it all at once. |
ok, honestly, 4 of those intersections could easily be built as 2 diamond interchanges instead, or even the really cheap interchange where the is an offset off and on ramp on both sides of the highway connected by a small 2 lane underpass / overpass in between.
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I''ve noticed over the past few trips to BC, the sheer amount of freight being shipped to Edmonton and points north may necessitate the twinning of the Yellowhead from Hinton to the Hwy16/Hwy5 junction just north of Valemount. As the Prince Rupert port takes shape, the highway between this port and the industrial heartland will become a critical link, and the obvious bottleneck is the highway through Robson and Jasper parks.
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Raised highway through there?
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Looks like traffic has moved onto the new Donald Bridge and Overhead today: http://wcs.pbaeng.com/projects/R2-Hwy1-Donald |
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What sucks is that the Ministry doesn't follow those recommendations. In the file with that report they mention the west bench realignment of the highway at Donald, realigning the highway through the Turtle Valley, realigning the highway through the Kicking Horse Canyon to the south side, etc. The Ministry doesn't seem to care what the previous studies recommend, they just care about cost. Most of the studies recommend freeway alignments with design speeds of 110 and 120 km/hr where feasible, which definitely won't happen. |
I drove from Sorrento to Calgary yesterday and observed the following along the busy highway (surprisingly busy to me for October)
- As mentioned earlier the Donald bridge and new railway bridges are open to traffic. It's still 1 lane in each direction but the construction seems to be on schedule for a fall wrap up. They are already starting the demolition of the old railway bridge. - Ditto for the Clanwilliam overhead. Almost ready for twinned traffic. - I hope when they mentioned roadwork between Donald and Golden they were referring to twinning all the way between Donald and Golden. I'm afraid they may just be referring to the short 1k between the railway bridge and truck weigh-station since no announcement was made. That still leaves about 32km of relatively straight and easy highway untwinned. Man - it was brutal on the 35km stretch by Donald to Golden. About 40 cars and semi's (that I could see) were stuck in a convoy behind a semi doing 80kph & 60kph on corners. The traffic was so heavy in the opposite direction - as per usual - there was no way to pass the scared trucker. For 35 km! - The wall they're building to twin the highway 4k east of Golden for about 1k+ seems to be proceeding. I couldn't see it very well but it seems like the roadway elevation will be dropped quite a bit (unless of course what I saw was just the base or mid section - in which case they have a pretty substantial amount of work left to raise the new roadway to the same elevation as the current road). - The Golden hill improvements are done. It's a shame the shoulder is tiny on the hill since you wouldn't want to be beside someone on that section since there is little room for error in places. I can see why the shoulder is tiny (avoiding the cost of a retaining wall) - and unfortunately I can see them fixing it again when money becomes available since it's an obvious slow spot & choke point. Still though - a twinned road is nice even if it's built to a lower standard. - Some of the newer sections of the highway near the huge bridge they built east of Golden obviously still have rock-slide issues. It's a shame since it seems like they tried to do it correctly. There are 2 huge piles of rocks leaning on the barriers (I can't tell if they made it onto the roadway - but I suspect they must have and been cleared, as was the case last year). There is also a comically gigantic round bolder right at the edge of the roadway. Too bad I couldn't get a picture. It looks like something Wiley Coyote pushed to squish the roadrunner. I can only imagine the look on people's faces when that came down lol. If it had rolled onto the highway it would flatten a semi (or roadrunner) like a pancake. - Someone had asked earlier about why the don't just 4 lane between Malakwa and North Fork when they replace those overheads. There are 2 bridges in between them. One is fairly new - but is only 1 lane in each direction so it'll require another new bridge. Given the short distance it would be nice if they just completed the whole section but that would likely double or triple the cost. (given their commitment to twin the highway though it seems strange they don't just go for it while they're working in the area. I would assume you'd save money by doing it all at once). But using the cash to fix up some of the more dangerous bridges that are left may save some lives and be better spent elsewhere for now. - They've cleared trees in Glacier right by Banff - so it looks like they definitely plan on extending the twinning into Glacier for a bit. Given the amount cleared though it looks like it's only about 500m. Hopefully they can just make use of the current construction crews and save some time and money on the extension. - The roadway and bridge railings in most of the BC National Parks are in pretty bad shape. As in - they had to put up temporary concrete barriers on many of the 60 year old bridges because the guardrails are breaking apart. They are resurfacing some pavement in Mt Revy park - which was well needed. Hopefully their delays in resurfacing the other parks and fixing their bridges is an indication that they are waiting to do that as part of a twinning project. - The bridge work by Field has wrapped up (after 2 years?). (no roadway improvements - likely just maintenance work) - The traffic in Banff has been routed onto the new roadway. There is still a lot of paving and some bridgework to do in Banff but if the weather holds it looks to me like the Banff twinning could be done this year aside from next years planned landscaping. |
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http://www.th.gov.bc.ca/kickinghorse.../Segment_1.pdf |
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Highway 63 twinning announced in Alberta. Mentioning it here since I believe it's about the same distance as remains on the Kamloops to Alberta border section (240km). Note that they are NOT awaiting federal funding. I think BC could learn something here. Ask for federal help on the provincial areas of the TCH for sure (called "Canada's main street" on the BC MoT website) - but put the big pressure on the feds to fund the upgrades in the national parks first. That's purely Federal - and if they see BC doing the right thing on the rest of the highway that'll be added pressure to fix up the park sections. As it is they see BC as relatively uninterested in completing the twinning anytime soon - so why should they care to fund their sections?
(provincial funding is actually decreasing over the next decade if what I've read is true ~710 in the past and ~650 now, but to be fair that could include federal money in the past - I don't know) I realize 63 is over relatively easy terrain compared to in BC but BC isn't even doing the easy sections of the TCH. Alberta plans to twin 240 km in 4 years - but in BC the plan is to twin an additional what - 4.5 km or something over the next 4-5 years? And I'm not talking the massively expensive Kicking Horse section - I'm talking 4.5 km as part of 2 small bridge replacements that are urgently need of replacement anyway. And there are some big differences here. Alberta announced a schedule and budget, where in BC they made promises during an election but never announced a schedule (I guess voters will fall for anything). They even put up signs and reaffirm their intentions from time to time - carefully avoiding a schedule or full scale plans. Looks like the bad press and death toll got to them... http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgar...ighway-63.html http://www.calgaryherald.com/news/po...605/story.html Another bad accident closed the TCH highway in Rogers pass on Friday. 12 year old boy dead this time. Accidents will always happen but a double divided national highway will prevent all these head on collisions. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/dea...028/story.html Someone accused me of only caring about the roads I drive. Strange since I was only commenting in the forums relating to those roads - so obviously those are the roads I'd comment on. As far as the whole highway - I think it should be twinned nationally - except perhaps at the very ends if it doesn't make sense locally. I know there are parts of Ontario etc that don't get used much - but I think a lot of that has to do with the poor condition of the highway. People take the faster and safer USA route to drive across Canada (plus gas is cheaper). How sad is it that we have to rely on another country for our roads. I'm not suggesting the remote parts of Ontario should be done first, but they should at least be done once the rest of the highway is twinned. When you think about the old rail line across Canada or even the original TCH it could easily be argued that it wasn't needed yet (at the time). As we see - big projects like this really open up the country and with our big country we need effective transportation networks. |
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Do you know if the entire Coquihalla highway costs were eventually fully paid for by the tolls? I'm not a fan of toll roads unless there is a free public alternative and the toll is removed once the initial investment is paid off (as happened here I assume). It seems to me like twinning the TCH from the left coast to Kamloops could be paid for by tolls now that there is a free alternative highway. Do some re-designation of the Coquihalla as highway TCH 1B or something (kind of like the Yellowhead highway is called the TCH too I believe to make people happy). Given the tough road conditions in BC - particularly in the winter it seems like a case could be made to twin the entire BC TCH rather than just the eastern areas. |
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I recall hearing years ago that the government kept the tolls long after the Coquihalla was paid for but I couldn't find any proof of that but what I did find was that the highway cost $848 million and the provincial Liberals announced that the tolls would be removed after they, and previous governments, had collected $845 million, so they basically stuck to their word. I also agree with you about having a toll/toll-free option on our roads and highways. Why this isn't standard procedure these days just baffles me. |
On a happy note, the first phase of Monte Creek to Pritchard is nearing completion. I drove through a few days ago and line painting was mostly completed. I am happy to see on the web cam today that they are installing a median barrier!
http://wcs.pbaeng.com/projects/R2-Hwy1-Monte http://wcs.pbaeng.com/httphandlers/q...0483&mode=prev |
I wonder if they will call that intersection "Exit 403" :D
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Twinning to Ft McMurray is not trivial engineering. While probably still less expensive than building through mountain valleys, twinning AB 63 past Grasslands is mostly through muskeg. |
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The canyon is still well travelled though. |
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