Also, I do agree that, unless the states decide to upgrade U.S. 97 up to the border, BC 97 south of Penticton should be left as is.

^^ Yeah they've been talking about that Vernon bypass since I was a kid. I don't think it'll ever happen. The last big improvement was the extension of 32nd avenue and the overpass north of town, which alleviated the zig zag you had to do right in the middle of town.

The overpass and twinning north of Swan lake was a good project as well.

The Wood lake bypass is great, That was such a bottleneck when the road ran along the lake, and makes travel from Vernon to the airport a snap. I don't see a Kelowna bypass happening anytime soon either. I do agree about extending the twinned section past the connector turnoff to Peachland. South of that I don't know how they'd expand the highway. The best thing they could do along there is probably add service roads in the places where businesses abut the highway to reduce congestion.

And I heard there was a time when Interior BC wasn’t treated as some sort of hinterland. :rolleyes:

And there was yet another deadly head on collision south of Prince George because the "divided" part is a very short section. Most of the highway is going to be undivided. The only time they are going to divide a section is when the land is not flat, so they don't have room to put all 4 lanes together.

The highway should be a proper free-way from Prince George to Kamloops with lanes separated by a grass median.

I don't see the interior being treated as such. I grew up in the interior, own property there and have family and friends all throughout. There's certainly not the same discord between major cities and smaller centres that you see in Alberta.

From the preliminary graphics and discussions I have seen so far regarding Peachland the preferred choice is an entirely new stretch of Highway to be built along the mountain side above the community. The current stretch of highway along the lakeshore would be repurposed by the community.

For me this is the best option for everyone. The highway loses a major bottleneck and Peachland gets to reconnect with its greatest asset, the lake.

Essentially it would be similar to the Wood Lake bypass.

That's not a bad idea at all. It would make the trip faster/ safer and allow for better development around the old highway, which I would assume would become more of a local road.

Preferred by most, but a few rich people living way up the hill might be able to convince the government to just add two more lanes a a few more traffic lights to the existing highway and call it a "major 21st century upgrade."

Is there much highway construction by Golden right now? hoping to get to the Horse to ride some pow soon!

Sometimes I really don't understand why money still has such influence in politics. I thought that everyone's equal* in democracy? :hell:

I'm not at all surprised if that sort of crap happens.

* I mean, in principle, not in practice.

Ps: In Ontario, Highway 402 was supposed to go north of London towards Woodstock to join up with 403, but this one rich family had its route altered to the inconvenience of everyone else.

I think construction starts next year and will last into Winter 2023 (Read: Winter 2027)?

I wonder if they couldn't abandon the entire stretch of 97 south of Westbank as a highway and do a junction off the connector, say 10k west of the existing junction. Keep the highway up high and run it all the way to Summerland like that. Keep the highway as a local road but funnel all the through traffic to the Coquihalla

They've been planning to use 97C as part of the bypass for a while. Here's the latest version I could find showing some of the newer takes on the original concept.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/dr...ls-nov2016.pdf

Sweet, glad it won't affect my snowboard commute this year. Looking forward to them sorting that area out though, been stuck in brutal traffic there more times than I can count.

Has it been so bad that going down 93 then backtracking via 95 would have been faster?

Any bypass would connect onto new but existing 4 lane highway north of Summerland and just south of Peachland.

Interesting - thanks for posting that. :tup:

Will sure be nice to have that last phase of KHC done.

That's gonna be one hell of a project, I can't wait to see it completed in its entirety. Currently that stretch of highway is a goat path. The highway will be 4 lanes from Golden to the Yoho Park boundary. Definitely will be over a billion dollars for Phase 4. Hopefully the feds will contribute a good chunk.

IIRC the total cost for phase 4 is $469M with each level of government contributing “nearly” half and half.

Additionally I wanna see the lights in Golden replaced with interchanges, same with the T-intersection with 95, and most importantly twinning from Leanchoil to first few km’s into the park because that < 90-degree turn looks absolutely awful.

Ps: Are there not enough federal votes to buy from Golden?