Highway 97 Widening in Kelowna Finished
 

https://www.kelownacapnews.com/news/...wna-complete/#

This is from 3 days ago.

Is this the first instance of HOV lanes in Interior BC??

Its an extension to the first, and currently only, HOV in Interior BC. The first phase was completed in 2009 when Hwy 97 was 6 laned from Gordon to Hwy 33. Now the 6 lanes and HOV continue to Sexsmith. Its a pretty sad excuse for an HOV lane though as its in the right hand lane! The only reason it was introduced was for the 97 Express. Its supposed to keep unnecessary traffic out of the right lane so the bus can stay on schedule. First it was a 24/7 HOV, then got reduced to 7am-7pm, Mon-Fri.

There are several streets in Vancouver with an HOV in the right lane. Hastings/Barnet Hwy and Georgia Street are good examples.

The hours seem good to me unless Saturday classes at UBC Okanagan are a thing.

Highway 97 is a parking lot with one light after another. They have even added ANOTHER traffic light with this highway "improvement"! To get to UBCO it's best to avoid highway 97 and take the back way into UBCO by Glenmore and the new John Hindle Drive.

When travel for work from Vernon to Osoyoos or Penticton (which I do often), I actually get off of the highway 97 north of Kelowna, and take the two lane Glenmore right into downtown Kelowna, and connect back onto the highway there. It's pathetic that a major highway in BC has 1 traffic light ever 3 km from Vernon to Osoyoos (a distance of 180 km). Last time I took this route and stayed on the highway the entire time it took me over 3 hours.

That means that the average speed was 60km/h on a major highway! How awesome is that for a first world country!

There isn't 1 traffic light every 3km, don't be silly. From Vernon south there's the light at OUC, and then you're clear sailing all the way to lake country.

Kelowna traffic has been a pain for three decades. Nothing new there.

Just need to wait for that bypass, eh?

Hardly clear sailing if you're headed to Oliver or Osoyoos. :???::hell:

What is the timeline on the bypass & will it include bypassing West Kelowna ?

It seems that Kelowna altogether went red during last year's election, so a general timeline will be whenever NDP gets out of the office. :cool::haha:

^Sigh .... thanks for the info anyway DA.
Will it bypass West Kelowna too ?

There is on average. I've counted. 180 km divided by 60 traffic lights = 3 km/ light.

I'm not too sure. You have to ask someone from the area about it.

I know there was a proposed bypass of West Kelowna a year ago, but many people deemed it flawed at the time. People might even have talked about it in this thread.

https://www.kelowna.ca/sites/files/1...s-ultimate.pdf

The link above only showed Kelowna Bypass.

There are several thoughts on bypassing West Kelowna, but the government is saying something like 40 years out. Here is the latest as far as I know: http://www.kelownadailycourier.ca/ne...8cea1f4f3.html

A BC version of Décarie Expressway? :D

Thanks for the info guys.
I thought they were talking about another lake crossing further north for the bypass ?
Option 2A doesn't make much sense with the huge hairpin that goes a fair distance north only to do a 180 and head south again ? :shrug:

I saw it and thought whoever proposed it must have done so while high on the newly legalized substance. :koko:

Welcome to BC. What else can you expect?

I think it averages out that way.

Add that one to the bridge over the lake bypassing Salmon Arm, the Vernon bypass, the Peachland bypass, and the east Kamloops bypass.

All good projects that should have been built decades ago, but will probably never see the light of day, especially with the anti-highway culture of the South Coast (that dictates what happens in most of BC).

The only one of those that has a somewhat real chance of happening in the next 10 years is the Peachland bypass, which IMO is the most important given that it will make the 97 4 lanes from north of Vernon to Penticton.

It could be worse though, at least over the last decade or so the corridor did see some major improvements (the really nice 4 lane stretch with climbing lanes along Wood Lake that replaced the 2 lane stretch along the shoreline, now that was really really really slow back in the day), the new bridge (which until 2008 was 3 lanes and had a lift span for when taller vessels needed to cross under...) and the 2 interchanges to the south, and the quite impressive 4 lag stretch that runs north of Summerland to just past Great Ranch Rd. that was blasted into the cliff side along the lake. So imagine driving that same stretch in 2007, 2 lanes the entire way between Summerland and Peachland, a 3 lane bridge sometimes closed to allow boats to pass (with 2 less interchanges), only 4 lanes though Kelowna (not 6), and 2 lanes along the entire shore of Wood Lake.

Now, all that said, in a perfect world the entire stretch of the 97 from at least the 97/97A junction north of Vernon to Penticton should be a freeway, but in all honesty I would settle for the Peachland bypass to be built (with interchanges) and a new freeway grade 4 lane route / bypass from West Kelowna to the UBC campus area (which obviously would include a new bridge).

South of the 3A / 97 junction the route can remain as two lanes (I actually personally don't want it to be expanded to 4 lanes through Oliver / Osoyoos area because that actually would destroy some of the character there, unlike from Penticton to Kelowna).

Is the South Coast anti-Highway? Definitely.
But completely so? I don’t think so.
Otherwise, TCH through Malahat would still be a joke today (although it kind of still is), the interchange at Highway 91/72nd Avenue wouldn’t have been a thing (the same for SFPR).

Outside of South Coast, look Highway 97 was just twinned south of Prince George. First divided highway in the area as people call it.