The Coquihalla Highway between Hope and Merritt is to reopen to commercial traffic and inter-city buses on Dec. 20.
Deputy Premier Mike Farnworth and Minister of Transportation Rob Fleming made the announcement at a Dec. 15 press briefing. Previously, Fleming had said that the important commercial route would be open to truck traffic by late January, though the massive project is now ahead of schedule.
Exactly what time the highway will open on Dec. 20 will be determined over the coming days.
At the press briefing, Fleming gave high praise to the hundreds of workers that have had a hand in the rebuild.
“BC road builders are held in extremely high regard, and they are second to none anywhere that you will find in the world,” said Fleming. “That reputation is long established, but I have to say, seeing the repairs that are happening on the Coquihalla, BC’s road builders have taken it to an entirely new level.”
The Herald was part of a media tour of the highway on Dec. 10, visiting four locations, namely Murray Flats, Bottletop Bridge, Juliet Bridge, and Mine Creek, with both Ministry and Yellowhead Road & Bridge officials. Bottletop Bridge, one of the hardest hit locations of the Coquihalla, lost about 100 metres of the northbound lanes, including the collapse of three bridge spans.
Temporary measures are now already in place to cross the area. It, along with the repair along Caroline Bridge heading southbound that was completed last week, were perhaps the two main factors in reopening the corridor.
In total, over 20 sites along the stretch of highway was heavily damaged or washed out by the Nov. 14-16 flood and mudslide events, covering 130 kilometres of the Coquihalla. 14 of these sites saw the roadway completely destroyed, while a total of seven sites saw bridge collapses.
“It is a story of highway engineering and reconstruction that is unfolding day-by-day,” said Fleming. “…It is as unprecedented as the storms that damaged it in the first place.”
When the ban on non-essential travel for BC residents will be lifted is unknown. When commercial traffic begins on Dec. 20, the speed limit will be set at 60 kilometres per hour in two-lane zones.
Most initial repairs have so far been temporary measures to simply speed up the process to restabilize the economy through commercial trucking. Dates for the completion of permanent repairs are still yet to be known.
Paula Cousins, the executive director for the Ministry of Transportation in the Southern Interior region, was one of the government staff on the Dec. 10 media tour. She said that the effort has included over 200 pieces of heavy equipment, over 300 workers around the clock, and the movement of 300,000 cubic metres of fill, equivalent to lining up dump trucks all the way from Hope to Kamloops bumper to bumper.
Over 130,000 cubic metres of rock has also been blasted, enough to fill over 50 Olympic sized swimming pools.
Cousins attributed the acceleration of the timeline to the immediacy of crews going to work on the project following the disaster, and favourable weather conditions since.
