Highway 1 east of Golden will reopened for the first time in a month today at noon, as the third round of extended closures wrap up in the Kicking Horse Canyon.
The highway will be open with no stoppages over the long weekend.
However, beginning on Tuesday, May 24, intermittent lane closures and minor stoppages will return for the summer, before another round of extended closures scheduled for the fall.
The highway will be closed overnight from 10 p.m. local time until 7 a.m., with 30-minute stoppages from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. and from 6 p.m. until 10 p.m. for the remainder of May.
When the highway is closed, travellers will be re-routed through Radium along Highways 93 and 95, adding approximately 1.5 hours of travel time.
Closures can be monitored on DriveBC or by viewing the calendar at kickinghorsecanyon.ca/construction.calendar.
The Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure has stated that after this most recent extended closure, more than 70 per cent of the planned extended-closure days will be complete.
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Construction activities will be carried out 24 hours a day and cannot be performed safely in the presence of traffic or during shorter interruptions during the extended closures, says the ministry.
The closures are a part of the larger Alberta to Kamloops four laning project, with the Province committing $837-million to upgrading Highway 1 between Kamloops and the Alberta border over the next three years under Budget 2021.
The project will see the highway expanded from two lanes to four with a meridian divider, with approximately 4.8 km of highway being updated, with 13 curves realigned and wider shoulders along the highway to accomodate cyclists.
Work is also being done on Quartz Creek Bridge just west of Golden, and construction wrapped up on the Illecillewaet Brake Check portion of the highway just east of Revelstoke this past summer.
The project is expected to last three years, with a maximum of 30 weeks of closures over that time.
