The article made me think that BC in general lacks a numbered secondary highway system. Obviously, its topography makes it difficult to always have a reasonable alternative route, but an area like the Okanagan valley shouldn't be completely reliant on a single highway. While upgrading a forestry road to a handle general traffic is a good start, it makes me think that something more comprehensive.

To be clear I'm not proposing a bunch of new expressways, more-so secondary highways that could serve a passable alternatives if Hwy 97 were closed do to natural events such as a floods, fires, or landslides, as well as traffic accidents. Here's my idea:

• Hwy 501 - West Kelowna-Spallumcheen via Westside Road
• Hwy 502 - Lake County-Carr's Landing-Vernon via Okanagan Centre Road/Carr's Landing Road/Commonage Road; possible continuation into Kelowna via Glenmore Road
• Hwy 503 - Kelowna-Narmata-Penticton via new road between Kelowna & Naramata plus Narmata Road

The secondary highway system could be applied to other areas of the province as well. For numbers, I just picked a random 3di series that's unused, but if it was province wide it would probably be numbered based on it's location of within the province. Thoughts?

While alternative routes would be a good idea, I'd personally prefer that the current X/XA/XB numbering system be maintained. 97A on the Westside Road would be more indicative of an alternative to 97 than 501, plus you avoid potential confusion with two different systems (XA and 50X).

Has anyone been through Kicking Horse Pass lately? How's the construction coming?

I'm heading that way on Friday.

^Bobert posted a great photo of the Big Horn Bridge and Lynx Viaduct in the Canada section - check it out.
Safe travels on Friday.

I just drove through Monday. The first viaduct on the west end of the project area is open and construction is progressing nicely on all the others.

Speaking of Kicking Horse Canyon

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...bc9931db_b.jpg
By BC Moti https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc...in/dateposted/

Looking at this, it will have a nice rhythmic flow to it when its done. Now if we can just get the NP section done. I will not get a chance to see this as we'll be driving the area after the long weekend.

That slope below looks like it could slide at any given moment. I know it’s obviously reinforced into the rock, but after what we went thru last fall, it just makes you wonder

Isn’t it closed after the long weekend ?
You’ll be detoured through Radium.

Agreed about getting the last 40kms through Yoho done.

Right, we come through after, its why I am now booked for 1 night in Radium. I have a project in Lake Louse the next day.

If the project was ready for me, we would have hit the TCH on Sat.

Also, we will be stopping by the big Cheeto on the way home after.

I was in Tofino over the long weekend and was surprised how little progress there had been with the Highway 4 Kennedy Hill construction in the past two years. It is still far from being completed and surprisingly little had happened. All the massive rock blasting and dirt removal was already done when I last visited in Nov 2020, but maybe COVID slowed them down?

I think the project has been going on for over four years by now.

Drove through the Koke last week. look like one more bridge is being replaced and then they are done. Should be all open next year. Otello was close to having all 4 lanes open. Overall the drive from Hope to Banff is a nice drive. the bypass was not overly busy but we hit it between 4 and 7 so mostly transport trucks which were doing a nice 100 k most of the time.

Tsawwassen to Hope was just under 2 hours at Lunch on a Monday.

Can’t figure out why the government can’t figure out not to tunnel sections of the trans Canada through the steep and winding sections.the money they put into cranes/engineering and reinforcing Cliffs building bridges and holding up traffic ext.
Tunneling would save on a lot of maintenance such as rock slides avalanche’s and land slides from extreme rains.
Other country’s tunnel most why can’t we. I guess we are a 100 years behind.

I suspect that a big factor is the geology of the mountain range. Rocky Mountains are pretty brittle so constructing anything is a pain in the bullocks regardless.
IIRC, there are few tunnels on American interstates crossing the Rockies too.
The Scandinavian countries tunnel their roads, but Scandinavian mountains are a lot older so less brittle. They’re like Canadian Shield except more mountainous.
I have yet to check the Alp’s geology. Edit: It seems similar to Rocky Mountains as both were formed from collisions. Maybe the countries around the Alps are densely populated so the average cost per person (or even per user if there are tolls) is much lower. It’s a number game that B.C. doesn’t afford to play.

It would appear that it is not just BC; there are no large-scale road tunnels in North America from what I can find. On Wikipedia's list of the longest road tunnels, there is only one entry from North America - the "Big Dig" in Boston - and that is in 355th place out of 362 listed. There's nothing listed on the "under construction" list either. As for rail tunnels, the Mount Macdonald tunnel is in 121st place as the only North American tunnel in the 172 listed as being greater than 8 km in length. We do have some longer water and subway tunnels, but overall there's little on the scale of other regions.

Not U/C yet but hopefully it won’t be too too long.
A sad story about twinning through Yoho NP in BC:

http://https://globalnews.ca/news/9246369/field-highway-one-fatal-crashes-yoho/

One year later and Hwy 8 is back in service.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpEKkacN--c

Highway 4's Kennedy Hill getting closer to completion.

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...d9e2f976_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...54a62c74_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...8bbe7cec_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...aa3a4688_b.jpg

https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...29a6ab27_b.jpg

Photos from BC MOTI https://www.flickr.com/photos/tranbc...57690343841444