Rarely does a person have an opportunity to see a highway being built. It’s even rarer to see a cliff moved from one side of the road to the other, literally. Driving the sea to sky highway, I am witnesses to massive rock walls being blasted to bits. The bits are then moved to the other side of the road, and poured into forms to create a road literally out of thin air.

According to a recent article in the Globe and Mail’s weekend edition, From Sea to Sky, a Superhighway, there are between 600 to 800 people moving 2.4 million cubic meters of fill. In some areas, the crew building the retaining walls to support the new road has to be tethered like mountain climbers.

Driving a highway which has about 400 accidents a year is daunting. Prior to departing to, or from Whistler, we always wish our friends a safe trip. We know the road and we know what’s possible.

Last year coming home from a couple’s golf weekend, our friends, who left five minutes after us, were involved in a head-on collision. It was a bright sunny day with clear roads. The driver of the other car fell asleep at the wheel and crossed the median. Their car was a write off (fortunately they drove a Volvo), but they were OK, save a few scrapes and bruises.

While there is no doubt the current highway is treacherous for the some 14,000 vehicles that use it daily, I don’t relish the thought of adding an additional 8,000 cars. The road is being upgraded to accommodate more cars at faster speeds. Unlike the 401 in southern Ontario, the sea to sky highway cannot be driven fast, no matter how many lanes they add.

The upside of the upgrade is the road will have an anti-skid surface, improved lighting, roadside reflective paint, and median barriers. Personally, I’d be happy if they just added reflectors and painted the edge of the road. Currently, I follow the tails lights in front of me for direction.

The new highway is also purported to shave 15 minutes off my commute time. While the price tag for the new road is pegged at $775 million, if it saves lives it will be priceless.

Cheers,

Julie

This entry was posted on Monday, February 11th, 2008 at 10:27 am and is filed under Road Trips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.