The Ministry of Transportation is now targeting October for the completion of construction on the Malahat Drive tunnel hill project.
The project is restoring a part of the road embankment that had been destabilized in a washout during the atmospheric river of November 2021. It had an original completion date of this summer, but was pushed back.
Deputy Director with the Ministry, Janelle Staite says that the weather has mostly been on their side, but the timeline has been affected by to spatial restrictions related to keeping traffic moving throughout construction.
“It’s a really complex project,” says Staite. “The contractor had a very tight work zone to work within and it was critical to make sure that traffic continued to flow effectively. We know the Malahat carries 30,000 vehicles a day, and upwards of that in the summer months, so traffic management was key.”
Staite says that the site will be restored to its previous condition, with a median and one lane in each direction, but also improve drainage at the site to ensure that another washout is less possible.
“We’re doing some significant upgrades from a drainage perspective to make sure that we do have a climate resilient design in place,” she says. “We’ve had some culvert work done to be able to support future large rain events like the one we say in November 2021.”
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As for feedback on the changed traffic conditions through the last 20 months since the atmospheric river, she says it’s been positive.
“It has slowed effectively throughout the duration of construction, however we are seeing a little bit of slowdowns in the summer months. That’s attributed to very large volumes of traffic that are headed out on the weekends and back in on the Sunday,” says Staite. “Some slowdowns there, but generally speaking we’ve got pretty positive feedback from the traffic management through that site.”
