Swerving his truck between orange pylons to pull onto a narrow shoulder, engineer Rod Vanwerkhoven glances up a dizzying wall of black rock that looms above the Sea to Sky Highway.
"In a lot of places the cliffs are so steep you can't even work on the rock face. It's like a 300-foot vertical right there," he says, before pulling back onto the hazardous road that once threatened to cost British Columbia its chance to host the 2010 Olympic Games.
It didn't, but only because the province undertook a massive, 100-kilometre, $775-million engineering feat.
A 600- to 800-strong team is moving 2.4 million cubic meters of fill, in one stretch alone blasting away enough rock to fill 500 railway boxcars. They are laying pavement over what was once thin air and, in the process, turning an unsafe mountain road - which has about 400 accidents annually, and has had 40 deaths in five years - into a modern highway where traffic will speed up and the accident rate will drop.
Long regarded as one of the most dangerous and beautiful drives in B.C., Highway 99 was considered such a scenic selling point that Vancouver and Whistler initially pitched its Olympic bid as "the Sea to Sky Games," highlighting the dramatic natural setting.
But when International Olympic Committee members got a look at the narrow, winding road, which clings to the precipitous terrain of the Coast Mountains like a frightened snake, they questioned whether Games venues should really be separated by such a slow, twisting route.
In 2002, Vancouver Organizing Committee chairman Jack Poole identified the need for a better highway as a possible deal-breaker in the bid and urged the government "to tell us what the solution will be."
In 2003, shortly before the Games were awarded, IOC evaluation team chairman Gerhard Heiberg set off alarms when he returned from a drive to Whistler to declare it was "too far from Vancouver" to host venues. "You need to shorten the [driving]time," he said.
Fearing the bid might fail, the B.C. government responded by promising an enormous improvement project that had been talked about for years. Since it began in 2004, the project has left engineers like Mr. Vanwerkhoven with some daunting challenges.
"We can't even imagine how to do blasting there," he said of the cliff that vanishes into clouds above the highway on a stretch between Lions Bay and Porteau Cove. On the other side of the road the slope plunges down into Howe Sound, where a CN Rail line squeezes along the waterfront, limiting the space in which crews have to work.
If you are an engineer whose job it is to make this busy highway wider, safer and faster in time for the Games, this is what it means to be caught between a rock and a hard place: On one side is a solid mountain wall; on the other, a sudden drop to the sea.
But Mr. Vanwerkhoven, who is with the design-build contractor Peter Kiewit Sons Co., doesn't hesitate when asked where the road goes from here.
"We build out there," he said, gesturing to the ocean side where a work crew is constructing what is technically known as a mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) retaining wall.
In some places, crews have been able to cut away rock on the upslope of the highway. But that isn't an option when the cliffs above are so high that millions of tonnes of rock would have to be removed. Here, the only solution is to go out over the bank, where a crew is building an MSE wall with layers of crushed rock, grids of heavy wire and hundreds of anchors buried deep in bedrock.
About 60 MSE walls are being built on the 16-kilometre section Mr. Vanwerkhoven is working on, which will allow traffic to eventually travel on pavement where there was once nothing but air.
And the entire project must be undertaken without closing the existing highway because there is no alternative route to Whistler, other than a five-hour detour through Lillooet.
Challenged with building a new highway without choking off tourist or commuter traffic, the contractors came up with a strategy that forbids road closings of more than 20 minutes at a time. Even when crews blast away part of a cliff face, strewing rock debris on the road, they must work within that window - setting and detonating charges and cleaning the pavement of rubble in the time it takes to have a coffee break.
To keep on schedule and finish the entire project by the fall of 2009, the crews have maximized night work, when traffic is at a minimum. And where possible, they confine their efforts to narrow, linear strips, alongside of or sometimes between lanes, so that some 14,000 vehicles a day can pass with minimal delay.
Space is so tight on this project that construction material, including mountains of gravel produced on site by portable rock crushers, is stored on the road shoulder because there is simply nowhere else to stockpile it.
Despite the daunting logistical problems, the Sea to Sky improvement project is now more than half finished. Three major sections will be done by this fall and the final four sections, right up to Function Junction in Whistler, will be done by summer or fall of 2009.
"On budget, and ahead of schedule," said Rob Ahola, a construction director and a private consultant working for the Ministry of Transportation. He shakes his head as if he doesn't quite believe it himself.
"It's going remarkably smoothly."
SAFETY FIRST
The Sea to Sky project was on the B.C. government's books for years, but it took the Olympics to serve as a catalyst.
Even without the Games, Mr. Ahola said, the upgrade would have been needed because of rapid growth in communities such as Lions Bay, Squamish, Furry Creek and Whistler. The population along the corridor is expected to almost double by 2025. Instead of 14,000 vehicles a day, there will soon be 22,000.
As he drives the Sea to Sky Highway, passing crews that are busy cutting through solid rock abutments or building walls on the edge of such sheer drops that workers must be tethered like mountain climbers, Mr. Ahola sees beyond the temporary chaos.
"It's hard to visualize what the future looks like, but I can see it," he said, stopping his car near the Eagle Ridge cutoff, a controversial section in West Vancouver that for a time was blocked by environmental protesters.
On the slope above, drills are sheering away rock and excavators are loading trucks that can carry about 34 tonnes at a time.
The $130-million section will cut a huge corner off the old highway, completed in 1957, and separate through traffic from the busy Horseshoe Bay ferry terminal.
"It will sweep down here," said Mr. Ahola, gesturing to where the foundations for an interchange are in place for ramps that will merge with the Upper Levels Highway.
Protesters, opposed to damage to the wetlands and forest on Eagle Ridge Bluffs, blocked work here for months until they were kept away by a court injunction.
Mostly this highway project has been welcomed by communities, however, not because it will shorten the 90-minute drive from Vancouver to Whistler by 15 minutes, but because it promises to cut the terrible accident rate by 30 per cent.
The sharp horizontal curves, narrow shoulders and limited passing opportunities gave the old Sea to Sky Highway an accident density rate (collisions per kilometre per year) three times the provincial average. A 1999 study found 2,155 crashes during a five-year period, mostly in 20 hazardous locations including the appropriately named Snake Hill.
The study stated that frustrated drivers were engaging in risky behaviour because "passing is virtually impossible and platooning [where vehicles bunch together]becomes intense when slower vehicles or other interruptions are encountered."
A government safety committee that looked at the highway in 1997 concluded that unsafe speed and dangerous driving accounted for 40 per cent of accidents.
"Many drivers are following too closely, cutting people off, crossing a double solid line, and speeding," stated the study, which concluded bad highway design encouraged bad driving.
Mr. Ahola said the dangerous curves and bottlenecks are being replaced by a highway with improved sightlines, gentler curves and wider shoulders. Although there will still be some two-lane sections, the new highway will be mostly three or four lanes, with lots of passing opportunities to eliminate vehicle platooning, and an 80 km/h speed limit will replace the mostly 50 and 60 km/h zones that now exist.
The project is utilizing context-sensitive design, or CSD, to encourage better driving. The approach analyzes the way drivers process the information streaming at them on road geometry, other vehicles and traffic-control devices as they make decisions on which lane to be in, how fast to go, how close to follow or how to approach a curve.
"Rather than accommodate driver behaviour, which is what most highway design does in North America, CSD influences driver behaviour with visual and auditory cues," states a Ministry of Transportation newsletter.
Mr. Ahola said the "behavioural cues" include wider painted lines, rumble strips that focus the attention of drivers, and design features, including special signs, that will make it clear to drivers when they are approaching communities or intersections.
The use of an anti-skid surface, improved lighting, roadside reflectors, highly reflective paint markings and median barriers will also be used to promote safer driving and cut down on accidents.
Narrow bridges will be widened or replaced (about 43 new or improved bridges are being built), and in the process they will be upgraded to withstand 200-year seismic or flood events.
"There will also be better rock-fall protection," said Mr. Ahola as he drove past a cliff face. "Now, when rock falls off it will land in the ditch, beside the road, not on it."
After weaving through construction zones, Mr. Ahola smoothly accelerates on a new, four-lane section. Traffic spreads out and for a moment the focus isn't on the next harrowing corner, but the view of Howe Sound and the snow-capped mountains.
But as he slows down for a two-lane section, a dump truck suddenly roars past, passing on a double line. Mr. Ahola raises his eyebrows in surprise. For some, it is obvious this highway can't be built fast enough.
THE FAST LANE TO WHISTLER
In preparation for the 2010 Olympics, the meandering 100-kilometre thoroughfare between West Vancouver and Whistler is undergoing a $600-million overhaul aimed at creating a safer, straighter highway with improved sightlines, more passing lanes and wider shoulders. The B.C. government hopes the improvements will reduce travel time between the two cities by 15 minutes and mean fewer road closings and fatalities - the highway currently has about 300 accidents a year.
A. RETAINING WALLS
Mechanically stabilized earth retaining walls create an artificial cliff face that allows builders to extend the highway toward Howe Sound by an extra two lanes.
Rebar anchors concrete slabs to the cliff face.
Soil and gravel backfill is trucked in and compacted.
The wall is brought up in stages to the height of the current highway.
B. HALF BRIDGES
When the cliff is too high or narrow to build retaining walls, half bridges can support two Vancouver-bound lanes.
C. SAFER CURVES
The cliff face is being dynamited to accommodate gentler curves, particularly near Lions Bay. Improved sightlines and more consistent driving speeds should reduce accidents.
FOUR AREAS OF CONSTRUCTION
1. MURRIN PARK TO SQUAMISH
Upgrades will create a four-lane divided highway with median barriers throughout. In Squamish, curbs, gutters, sidewalks and improved lighting will be added.
2. LIONS BAY TO MURRIN PARK
Three- and four-lane passing sections are being added. Four-lane sections will have a median barrier.
3. SQUAMISH TO WHISTLER
This section will be widened to three lanes throughout, including improved two-lane sections and alternating passing lanes in each direction.
4. WEST VANCOUVER TO LIONS BAY
Four-lane sections with median barriers are being added, curves straightened, sightlines improved and shoulders widened.
BY THE NUMBERS
$775-million: 2006 cost estimate for the Highway 99 improvement project.
100-kilometre
-long project will add 219 retaining walls, 74 km of rumble strips and 68 km of wider shoulders.
46: bridges are being improved or built, with new structures made high enough to withstand a 200-year flood event.
5,707: crashes, 1991 to 1999.
30: per cent reduction in accidents expected.
15: minutes less travel time between West Vancouver and Whistler.
450,000: tonnes of asphalt ill be used.
2.4 million: cubic metres of fill will be moved during construction, enough to fill 500 railway boxcars.
600 to 800: people to work on the project.
80,000: cubic metres of rock was blasted and drilled from the road right-of-way at Darrell Bay.
SOURCES: THE B.C. MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION, PETER KIEWIT SONS CO., AGGREGATES & ROADBUILDING MAGAZINE AND THE B.C. AUDITOR-GENERAL.
Mark Hume