Work to permit a portion of Highway 14 on Parkinson Hill to host two-way traffic again will begin as early as the end of July, after the province awarded a contract to build a retaining wall this summer and do other safety-related roadwork construction in 2021.
According to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, work will begin on the retaining wall in late July or early August. Local traffic will be affected by nightly closures of the stretch of the road east of Port Renfrew starting in mid-August. Those closures will be in effect between 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. Mondays to Fridays through to Nov. 30.
Measures will be in place to allow for emergency services access during the closures.
Crews from Jacob Bros. Construction, which was awarded the $5.3-million contract by the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, will work on the 220-metre retaining wall first to make the road safe for travel in both directions. The highway will operate with two lanes from Dec. 1 to Jan. 31, 2021.
The second phase of the project will see deep road base repairs done on a 500-metre stretch between February and June 2021. The latter work will require the same overnight road closures during construction.
CRD Juan de Fuca Electoral Area director Mike Hicks is thrilled to see the work beginning on upgrading the safety of this stretch of road.
“What they’re fixing is a disaster for the highway. It’s a huge thing and tough to fix,” he said.
Port Renfrew residents are “very grateful” that the project is soon getting underway and that crews will be working at night, he said.
Once completed, the work will make the road in and out of Port Renfrew safer for residents and visitors, Hicks said.
This hilly section of Highway 14 was reduced to single-lane traffic in November 2018 after significant rainfall resulted in slope failure.
For up-to-date information on road work, visit DriveBC.ca or news.gov.bc.ca/ministries/transportation-and-infrastructure.
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