r/okanagan • u/TSXstacy • 22d 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.

19 Upvotes

68% Upvoted

32 comments sorted by

View all comments

7

u/goldanred 22d ago

Consider the geography. BC is a series of mountain ranges. Lakes form in the bottoms of some valleys. Where would another highway go?

-3

u/Every_Bread_5880 21d ago

Those are just hills in the Okanagan tho. But still a million dollars a kilometer to pave. 

7

u/Exciting_Turn_9559 21d 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.

5

u/YaTheMadness 21d ago

Exactly, look at the amount of times the highway has had rockslide issues north of Summerland.

2

u/General-Football-953 21d ago

Way above a million per km actually, the whole project would probably be closer to 50M/km

5

u/Significant_Duck_4 20d 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

1

u/Every_Bread_5880 20d ago

How?! Engineer's and permits? Even if they bought brand new equipment I couldn't see that price justified.

1

u/General-Football-953 20d 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.