The ride up Silver Star Mountain is going to be a little smoother.
The Ministry of Transportation will spend $1.4 million repaving 15.4 kilometres of Silver Star Road from the Vernon city boundary to the resort village this summer. Also included is repaving of an additional 3.3 kilometres of residential roads at the resort.
“It’s a road that is getting more use and needs to be upgraded,” said Eric Foster, Vernon-Monashee MLA, of Silver Star Road.
“The school bus goes up and down and Silver Star Mountain Resort is getting more summer use. More people are living along the corridor.”
Silver Star Mountain Resort has been lobbying for upgrades to the road.
“You have this multi-million-dollar resort at the end of 19 kilometres of potholes. We hear about it from guests,” said Brad Baker, the resort’s operations director.
“In the past two years, we have had about half-a-dozen complaints about damage to vehicles.”
Silver Star Road also earned BCAA’s Worst Road title in 2014.
Baker is pleased with the paving work that is moving ahead.
“If I produced a map where the problems are, they seemed to have covered it,” he said.
Foster says upgrades to Silver Star Road benefits the economy and tourism.
“The resort is an economic driver for the community and it’s getting bigger and better every year,” he said.
It’s expected that Okanagan Aggregates, of Armstrong, will have the project completed by Sept. 30.
