Quote:
Originally Posted by craner
Drove Calgary to Penticton and back over the weekend - what a national embarrassment the TCH is for a large portion of this journey. Long stretches through Yoho, Rogers Pass don't even have any lines and the state of the road surface is third world. Pleeeaaase put some Federal/Provincial money into our national highway.
On the bright side, the highway could realistically be twinned from Calgary to Golden in 10 years with a concerted effort.
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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)