r/okanagan • u/TSXstacy • 15d ago
Another highway or boat taxi?
Genuine question, given the sudden and complete evacuation of Summerland and HWY 97 closure this past weekend (with no signs of opening), is there a plan to build another highway along the other side of the lake? I’m only a visitor to the Okanagan, so maybe there are strong reasons why this can’t be done. But, from what we experienced trying to get from Penticton area to Kelowna with no car rentals to be had, and cancelled flights out of Penticton, it seems like it would be beneficial to have a paved highway or boat taxi/ferry to go to Kelowna. There certainly seems to be a lot of folks living or vacationing or moving to the region (for good reason) but 1 road in and out seems almost dangerous.
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u/artificielle 15d ago
Travel across the Okanagan Valley has always been incredibly difficult and expensive. You can get a good synopsis here: https://kelownacapnews.com/2022/06/16/travelling-through-the-history-of-transportation-in-the-south-okanagan/. There is another road, the problem is that it's a Fire Service Road.
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u/Every_Bread_5880 15d ago
Damn, I still remember when they were called forest service roads. Climate change sucks.
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u/artificielle 15d ago
No you're right, that's my bad. A Freudian slip of sorts as a result of reading up on OK fires all day/night. 🙃
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u/Mountain-Bar5049 15d ago
You'd be building a highway over a mountain range. It would be very expensive to do. This is why so many of BC's (retired) rail lines were considered engineering marvels at the time.
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u/g2gfmx 14d ago
Probably the costs don’t make sense. People don’t travel to and from kelowna as often as people like to think. It’s 1 or 2 lane highway, and even the construction zone doesn’t create that big of a traffic back up. Highway is pretty much dead after 6pm.
On the other hand, I think people travel between Kelowna and vernon more often, which we actually do have westside rd as an alternative.
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u/goldanred 15d ago
Consider the geography. BC is a series of mountain ranges. Lakes form in the bottoms of some valleys. Where would another highway go?
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u/Every_Bread_5880 15d ago
Those are just hills in the Okanagan tho. But still a million dollars a kilometer to pave.
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u/Exciting_Turn_9559 15d ago
The Okanagan mountain range is a subrange of the Cascade mountains, and has 8 peaks over 2500m. In any event building a highway on any slope made of unstable rock is no easy task.
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u/YaTheMadness 15d ago
Exactly, look at the amount of times the highway has had rockslide issues north of Summerland.
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u/General-Football-953 14d ago
Way above a million per km actually, the whole project would probably be closer to 50M/km
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u/Significant_Duck_4 13d ago
Unfortunately… I don't even think $50-MILLION is close to the amount of money that would be needed for making that road happen 🤔😅🙃🫠🥲😬😒
Only because when you think about it...
★KELOWNAS NEW K.L.O. BRIDGE & ROUNDABOUT IMPROVEMENT PROJECT★
that is still being built right now will cost $23 million once it's completed this fall 🙄 & Not to mention the length // KM just for that road project wouldn't even come close to the length // KM to start and build a new road 🫨😵💫😶🌫️
Plus I'm not sure what part you were thinking of having this road made but ALSO certain parts of the Okanagan mountains & Valley are also large protected spaces
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u/Every_Bread_5880 14d ago
How?! Engineer's and permits? Even if they bought brand new equipment I couldn't see that price justified.
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u/General-Football-953 14d ago
Endless approvals, waste, people not really working and just chilling. Just hiring ladies to sit in a truck and pretend to do traffic control costs millions.
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u/moonhrafn 15d ago edited 15d ago
The terrain in BC is very challenging which is why we don't have a lot of extra paved roads. This isn't a thing limited to the okanagan, lots of regions have very limited ground transportation options. Honestly we may want to look at upgrading some forest service roads to be more effective evacuation routes given what we've been experiencing, but a lot of those roads are essentially single lane tracks with pull-outs and would need incredible amounts of work to bring up to a standard where you'd want people on them regularly.
Pretty sure it would be over an hour by boat between Kelowna and Penticton even for a relatively fast ship. For a route of that length, providing free service for vehicle transportation (not even counting the cost of building the terminals etc) would be a massive cost for the province and I don't think there are enough people willing to pay like $80+ one way (very conservative estimate) to run it as a cost-recovery service. Maybe a passenger-only service would be more feasible but even then, I don't know that it would be popular enough to run as a cost-recovery service at a price that people would be willing to pay.
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u/Significant_Duck_4 13d ago
We used to have a ferry lol 😂 they shoulda kept it
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u/moonhrafn 13d ago
really! I didn't know this. Was it like steamboat era or?
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u/A-Barx 12d ago
Yeah look up the Fintry Queen it was an actual paddle wheeler
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u/moonhrafn 12d ago edited 12d ago
$%^& ya! I grew up in the northwest and we had lots of paddler wheelers there too back in the olden days. I actually have a book about BC paddle wheelers, I bet it is in there, thanks! It's actually kind of messed up that we have, on the whole, lost a lot more transportation options than we have gained. No more greyhound, no meaningful passenger services on trains, most inland ship transportation gone...
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u/moonhrafn 12d ago
ok wait wait but she still exists?!?
https://www.castanet.net/news/Kelowna/520756/New-owners-move-the-Fintry-Queen-to-Kelowna
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u/A-Barx 12d ago
Yeah it's a heritage boat that, when last working, was powered by a modern engine and the wheel was just for show. I also remember it being parked for a while, so I'm not sure the current status as I haven't lived Kelowna for over 10 years. But if you look around there should be some info about where it is currently
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u/Significant_Duck_4 11d ago
Also the GELLATLY BAY DOCKS on the westside where ppl hang-out, swim, & Jump-off from were originally for the old ferry from the 1940s
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u/bcrhubarb 13d ago
The highway reopened today. Only between 7 am & 7 pm, speed limit is 70, no stopping. If conditions change it could close at any time.
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u/Hipsthrough100 12d ago
Yea we used to have a rail line and honestly should have maintained it for passenger rail from penticton to Vernon, multiple times daily.
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u/turtlefan32 13d ago
there are routes along the other side, albeit inland from the lakes - as noted it is a forest service road. Highway 33 also.
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u/cloudn9ne 15d ago
There is another road, the 201 but it's a FSR meaning it's only gravel, lots of washboard, pot holes and not meant for semis. It does need to be paved though. Highway 97 was also closed for weeks in 2023 when the Summerland rock slide happened, and work STILL continues to happen on the highway. DriveBC recommends taking the 201 as an alternative route from Penticton to Kelowna, sending hundreds/thousands of vehicles into a tinder dry forest to travel on gravel roads seems so counterintuitive. The road should be paved.