Totally agree. Many of the difficult terrain areas and bridges have been addressed. Hopefully with the ... Feds Action Plan... it will happen in a decade.

It really should be twinned. I don't know the actual numbers, but I have a feeling that Calgary to Vancouver is much busier than Calgary to Winnipeg, and isn't that section twinned for a significant amount of that stretch? Perhaps I'm way off base though :P But yeah, TCH needs to be twinned all the way between Calgary and Vancouver. Would probably cost over a hundred billion though... :/

TCH is twinned from just west of the MB/ON border to just south of Lake Louise AB. The TCH should have been twinned across Canada since 1970!

A hundred billion????

That's $250 million per km...

Maybe if they paved it with gold.

I know the Feds and Province have been investing in upgrades to the TCH through BC recently - it was just shocking to see they have let it deteriorate to it's current state in many sections.

It was obviously a rough estimate, relax.

It is definitly an important investment to upgrade the Trans Canada highway from Kamloops to Banff since it would create an expressway all the way to Ontario. As far as.twinning is concerned, I dont think there are many ,cities large enough to connect with an expressay. The Cqohahalla connects Kamloops to Hope by expressway, which already twinned by the two lane TCH.

Lol - I just got back from 2 third world countries (Zimbabwe&Tanzania) - and BOTH were fixing their main highways and twinning sections. As always I was shocked at how much better 3rd world highways often seem compared to BC - and even with a lot less traffic they seem to understand that for trade and safety you need modern highways - even if you're in a poor country. Interesting - one great section in Tanzania was paved by the Japanese in exchange for no Visa's and free park entrance for Japanese citizens for a year - according to our driver. (they buy a lot of Japanese cars there apparently and have a great relationship with Japan).

As for Calgary to Golden being twinned over the next 10 years it seems very unlikely (unless we can get the Japanese to pay for it lol). I think it took something like 40 years to twin Banff, and as far as I know the feds haven't given any hint that the mountain parks in BC will be twinned other than a few feet into Yoho. Pressure from BC has been slim to none on that - perhaps because they've been asking for fed help on the provincial sections so they know it's pointless to pressure the feds on their park sections. Repairing but not upgrading the 1 lane bridges in Yoho lately shows they aren't serious about twinning anything for decades. (hopefully I'm wrong, but you don't usually fix narrow crappy old bridges if you're planning a highway twinning anytime soon).

As for Golden-Kamloops the time frame seems equally bleak. I believe the money earmarked over the next decade won't even get it to the 1/2 way point (not even counting KHC). The highway will be twinned - but not in our lifetimes (unless you happen to be a baby)

Even just Kamloops through to Revelstoke would be a plus. The drive between Revelstoke and Golden is neither treacherous, nor pain full.

Work has begun on phase II of Monte Creek to Pritchard. When I drove through last week and yesterday I saw some clearing of farmland in the alignment, just east of phase I work. Signs say a fall 2014 completion.

Signs are also posted for phase I of Pritchard to Hoffman's bluff with completion of Summer 2014.

I'd say it's treacherous in the winter - which is 6 months of the year. And painfully crowded in the summer months or around long weekends. So it's okay for say 2, maybe 3 months of the year, but I'm sure truckers wouldn't even agree with that.

I read newspaper articles where businesses and local politicians have complained about the main highway in Canada being closed between R & G several times a year - it's is a real economic concern for them. Even winter tourists are afraid of getting trapped (my boss was and won't be returning) and I know some people who refuse to vacation in BC in the summer because of the scary highway. The KHC appears to be the most dangerous - but the west side of Golden is overcrowded and very dangerous. What is it, something like 34 km there without a passing lane? On a crowded highway. People get frustrated and make some very dangerous passing choices. At least on the old KHC sections it's so winding and narrow it forces people to drive cautiously. Heading west from Golden is only safer on paper, not reality.

Slow, very slow, improvements are being made - at least in the non-park areas. In the mountain parks through BC it's pretty much the same road that was built in 1950's (often not even built to 1950's standards).

The super dangerous Donald bridge has finally been replaced - so that's a major improvement. The new road around the scales near the bridge was designed by fools (car traffic shouldn't have to slow down for a scale - it's just dangerous for trucks and other vehicles) but I know that's finally being improved too (it remains to be seen if they are actually fixing the problem there or just adding another lane to the confusing mess they built). It's sad when a new road has to be fixed.

Drove to Calgary last week, and came back on Tuesday. The Clanwilliam overpass project is nearly completed. Four lanes were in operation by the drive home.

The banff twinning project seems to be getting closer as well. Most of the widening has been completed in the final phase, but only 2 lanes of traffic are currently operational. The small 500m extension into BC appears to be in the works as well: there was tree clearing completed, but was is a little hard to tell around the border, as the signs for BC and Alberta seemed to be missing (probably for the construction work).

I didn't have time to stop for pictures unfortunately. Hopefully I'll get some shots of Clanwilliam later this summer.

Yes, please do - I'd be interested to see this.

You probably already know about the construction cam, but for those who don't:

http://wcs.pbaeng.com/projects/R2-Hwy1-Rev

The Lake Country Bypass is looking spiffy. Can't wait to drive it this summer.

So is there still construction going on between Bannf and Lake Louise?

I didn't see any construction going on when I went skiing at Lake Louise in February.

They've been working on that section since what now 2008, 2009?

The construction is further west than Lake Louise, it's the last 8.5km to the BC border, with a possible/probable 500m extension into Yoho Park on the BC side. The segment to the border (virtually all of it) should be finished this year (i.e. Phase IIIB-3 which began in 2011). I hope the feds will announce twinning into Yoho Park sometime soon.

^ Me too.
And by "soon" I mean this week.:)

Looks like the new alignment of Hwy 97 north of Kelowna, from Winfield to Oyama, is gonna open up soon:

http://wcs.pbaeng.com/httphandlers/i...5409&mode=prev

http://wcs.pbaeng.com/httphandlers/i...5422&mode=prev

Awesome! Thanks for a real update finally on this thread! this was a decent sized project, now Peachland is the only 2 lane section left between Vernon and Penticton.

Looks nice ;)

Is that a concrete divider in the median I see ?:)

Yep. Entirely divided, grade-separated, four to six lane throughout, and the speed limit is being increased from 80 to 100 km/hr. I drove past there on Thursday, looks very good.

Now they just need bypasses for Vernon and West Kelowna. Good luck! :P

Drove from Chase to Alberta last night. The transCanada Highway was closed in BOTH directions from 8 am until about 4 pm by Revelstoke (with no detour possible). I'm not sure why a head on accident would take so long to clear but it was a real traffic mess for many hours after they opened the highway. I was parked for an hour by the mafia highway - and I left 2 hours after the road opened. Man it was brutal. There were so many transport trucks passing slower trucks that the passing lanes were all but useless.

http://www.revelstokecurrent.com/201...loses-the-tch/

Note that it was a head on collision. My guess is that a car made an unsafe pass attempt on the frustrating highway and hit the truck. I counted 5 people make similar bone-head pass attempts on the busy highway. They should just re-paint the lines and allow no passing outside of passing lanes. I know it's extreme but the road is just too busy and curvy to safely pass.

The new Donald bridge has no center barriers and Clanwilliam only has them for a short section over the bridge. I guess BC wants to save a few bucks at the expense of safety, tourism, trade etc. I really feel bad for the truckers having to put up with the 3rd world BC highway. The only new construction this year after Chase is for signs saying they're twinning the highway (someday - within 100 years I guess). The rest of the announced projects are all in the "planning" stages - and will only amount to a few more Km's when done.

At least the new signs point to a website. A website has some incorrect information I believe - implying a twinned Craigellachie Overhead where it's only 1 lane for example. http://engage.gov.bc.ca/bchwy1/ I'm also concerned that the Salmon Arm West is listed as in the planning stages while the city of Salmon Arm seems to be doing a lot of road widening and utility relocation there as we speak. Hopefully the website is just out of date and this extremely short twinning project is underway. It would be a shame if they had to re-do the work. (Does anyone know why BC keeps creating new websites and then quits updating them?)

3rd world roads lol

The only time I hear comments like that it's from douchebaggy albertans who feel entitled to get to their shacks on the Shuswap an hour faster .. and they'll still drive like idiots even when the road it 4 lanes divided each way.

I've driven that highway hundred of times, including in a 5 tonne car carrier. Never felt unsafe, sometimes it's slow.. but the road doesn't cause people to do stupid stuff.. people do

Yeah I laugh at the third wold roads comments as well. The highways are actually really smooth and well surfaced considering how many sparsely populated areas they serve in BC. I was just along the 24 in the Cariboo and not a single pot hole.

The highways in BC are very akin to the quality of Sweden. Major highways near Stockholm and Malmo (akin to Vancouver and the Lower Mainland) with a couple freeways extended a couple hundred km out of the populated area (again, akin to the #1, the Coke, the Sea to Sky) and then 2 lane rural highways everywhere else with the odd interchange near major junctions (again, exactly the same as BC and very similar in quality).

When will people realize the BC is a huge place with amazingly difficult topography and a relatively small population. We do rather well given that we have no true Federal highway program.

For example, how many hundreds of million has the Kicking Hose project cost so far? The Sea to Sky was nearly 600 million. How about the hundreds of millions spent blasting mountains along the Okanagan Corridor (which has improved amazingly over the last 5 years)? What about all of the twinning occurring along the 400km long Cariboo highway (btw was driving there last week and some major sections being twinned right now).

Do people not understand that BC is riddled with canyons, mountain ranges, deep valleys, mountain slopes plunging into fiords, inlets, etc... not to mention that our big city has 2 major Rivers flowing through it (that make anything in Alberta look like a creek) and that the Fraser splits into 3 arms at the Delta, therefore having to spend billions on major bridges that allow river shipping below just to connect entire suburbs that are located on islands) I could go on, but every region wants larger highways, from southern Vancouver Island, Metro Vancouver, the Whistler / Squamish corridor, the Okanagan, the Fraser Canyon, the south east corner, the Cariboo, Prince George to Prince Rupert, the Peace region, etc.... well, without a Federal prgram where do we get this money????

I wish we could just plow over generally flat Prairie, but our topography is both a blessing and a curse. Even building through the shield would be nice, but instead we have to build through countless east / west mountain ranges with valleys, causing our highways to continuously go up to over 1000m in elevation, then back down to 300m, then up to 1200m, then down to 500m, then up to 1000m, then down to 400m, etc... we are given a break a few times, along steep canyon walls! haha!

The problem is that we have a country to the south with 10x our national population and a federal highway program, so it's easy to compare TCH 1 with I-90 and conclude that we need the same thing in Canada.

I do agree that the Trans Canada needs upgrading, that we need a better federal highway program, and that our national highways are considered some of the worst of the G-8 nations (granted we also have the lowest population density which leads to the above argument). However "3rd World" is exaggerating quite a bit. Just for reference sake, here’s something more akin to a 3rd World highway in Russia:

http://www.ssqq.com/archive/images/s...2022%20357.jpg
Source: http://www.ssqq.com/archive/vinlin27c.htm

Even at it’s worse, I don’t think the Trans Canada has ever looked like that between Sicamous and Golden. :help:

Here’s a couple questions I have about TCH upgrading:

1) How was the Trans Canada Hwy upgraded between Fredericton, NB and the New Brunswick/Quebec border? It appears that the Quebec Provincial government is upgrading Hwy 185 to A-85, but was TCH 2 twinned by federal or provincial assistance?

2) Assuming that BC couldn’t get enough federal assistance to upgrade TCH 1, could they make some exemptions regarding their policy on tolls? Currently there has to be a toll-free option before a route can have tolls, but what about upgrading TCH 1 between Sicamous and Golden and putting a toll on the route? The BC government could then put a toll-free exemption on residents living along the Trans Canada Highway so “local” traffic wouldn’t need to pay a toll. For example, if someone shows their drivers license at the toll booth and the mailing address is Golden or Revelstoke, they would not have to pay. Any thoughts?

A toll will never fly, it is political suicide.

I wish the #1 could be full freeway standard it's entire length, but again no federal program.

And when you look at BC all of our major centers are connected by major free flow highways for the most part (Metro Vancouver, Kelowna, Kamloops, Metro Victoria). It is no surprise again given our population, density, topography, distances, and lack of a federal program that the scale of our highways drop off dramatically outside of these regions.

That being said the last 10 years has seen amazing improvements throughout the province (I don't feel like listing them again but the Cariboo highway project, the Okanagan Corridor project, the Sea to Sky, and the Kicking Horse Canyon project are all very large improvements just to list a few)

Would love to see the Kootenays (the only part of southern BC without one) connected by a freeway to the rest of the province. There actually was an extension of the Coq from Kelowna to Big White then down along Arrow Lake to here in Castlegar. It made newspapers in both cities but is now dormant.

Wasn't there a propsal to extend the freeway as far east as Radium?

I can understand why someone would want a freeway into those areas.. I really do.. but I would hate it. Making the Kootenays more accessible means greater development and economic opportunities I am sure, but it will also ruin the flavor of the place. Just like if the Jumbo pass road were to be upgraded and paved to give Albertans access to the west side of the Purcells, it'd be detrimental to the Kootenay Lake/ Duncan lake area.

I don't think you'll see one though.. there's just not the population base to suppport it.

And Kelowna and Winfield. Or at least get ride of all the traffic lights. It probably takes as long to get through Kelowna as it does to get to Vernon from Kelowna.

If it were up to me, the next major highway projects in BC should be a Kelowna freeway bypass (including upgrading the highway to freeway standard through West Kelowna), upgrading the 17 to full freeway standard from the ferry terminal in to where it currently ends in Vicotria, and replacing the Malahat between Vicotria and Nanaimo with a 4 lane tolled expressway.

Just my dreams though, hehe.

As someone who visits Vernon and then drives on through to Vancouver, this would be great. But I think for most, Kelowna is probably the end of the road so is a bypass really necessary? A Westbank freeway is probably likely though.

Yeah, the Westbank / West Kelowna portion will for sure be built first, they already have 3 / 4 interchanges built, seems they are slowly chipping away to that conclusion.

Still can't get use to that name change from Westbank to West Kelowna.

Same, haha, talk about picking the most boring name possible. The Okanagan is full of some of the most exotic sounding names in Canada: Osoyoos, Naramata, Summerland, Oyama, Peachland... but no they go with West Kelowna...

Geezz...as an Albertan who was planning a trip to BC next summer, I think I'll say FO.....after all the anti-Albertan comments on here.

Ya they actually had a vote and the locals chose "West Kelowna". I guess they were going with the "West Vancouver" model??

Random out outburst?

And if they build a freeway through/around Vancouver and all the way up to Sicamous, I wonder if it'll be faster than going through Kamloops?

According to Google maps, it take half an hour longer to go through Kelowna. I'm guessing a freeway through the Okanagan would more than save that half an hour.

If you are leaving Vancouver and continuing on the #1 east of Kamloops, there's no reason you'd take the connector.

With the Wood lake section of 97 twinned, I think that really asside for a few stretches around Peachland and North of Osooyos the highway is pretty good.

Don't like the idea of a Vernon bypass, and I think they will eventually build the viaduct over Polson Park and make 27th st the northbound lanes of 97 and 32nd st the southbound.

It'll be fun to see how things are shaping up in BC.. I am about to take my annual summer road trip.. Edmonton -> Creston (via Cowboy trail & Crowsnest) -> Nelson (via 3A) -> Vernon (via 6) -> Vancouver (via 97C) -> Lone Butte/ Bridge Lake (via 1/97/ 24) -> Edmonton (via 5/16) About 5000k's worth

Lots of twinning happening on the 97 heading north before hitting the 24, potentially expect delays if heading that way.

^ good to know.. thanks for the tip! Luckily I am in no rush and the beers will still be cold when I get to the cabin at Bridge :cheers:

No problem, I go that way often because my parents have a place near Interlakes. The Cariboo is definitely BC's answer to Ontario's cottage country.

^ It's funny, I spent 25 years in BC and never went up that way. Then in '06 my dad retired and bought the place on Bridge. I was pretty amazed at the country up there... it's been really neat watching Interlakes grow over the past 6-7 years from basically nothing.. Just wish that they'd left the Fish-On pub alone

.

Definitly need Fedral help for the TCH through BC.
Ironically the worst portions of the highway are in Glacier & Revelstoke National Parks. Terrible road surface and stretches with no lines painted on the road.