Features Projects Roads & Paving
Highway 1 improvements completed at Hoffman’s Bluff

December 14, 2016 – Construction is now finished on three more kilometres of upgrades that will improve safety and reliability on the Trans-Canada Highway.

The second phase of the Pritchard to Hoffman’s Bluff project has been completed. Work involved straightening and four-laning the highway, improving accesses, and adding median barriers, wider paved shoulders and rumble strips. An adjoining 2.8 kilometres were upgraded under the first phase of the Pritchard to Hoffman’s Bluff project that opened to traffic in July 2015. This section of Highway 1 is located approximately 40 kilometres east of Kamloops, B.C. and, in the past, has had a higher than average collision rate.

Throughout the design and construction of both phases of the project, the province worked closely with the Secwepemc Nation, addressing any environmental concerns and collaborating together to minimize the impacts of construction and preserve culturally significant sites along the corridor. A construction agreement was also required before work took place through the Neskonlith Indian Band’s reserve near Hoffman’s Bluff.

“Sœásca the original Secwépemctsin name for Hoffman’s Bluff is a significant cultural site, through research, cultural monitoring, archaeology, and mitigation the site was protected during the highway widening, the community mandate was to ensure safe passage and protection of the site. The cultural legacy from Monte Creek to Hoffman’s Bluff, basically is now rewritten from the information that came about, it accounts our historical presence on the land and ongoing connection to these lands, for the many cultural areas, fishing stations, harvesting areas, tool making sites, burial landforms, trails along the Trans-Canada highway,” said Chief Judy Wilson of the Neskonlith Indian Band. “The Adams Lake, Neskonlith, Little Shuswap Lake, Shuswap and Splatsin bands are working collectively on the Highway 1 corridor with the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure which ensures continued direct involvement in all levels including cultural and habitat protection for fisheries and wildlife.”

Since 2001, the provincial and federal governments have invested or committed more than $980 million on the Trans-Canada Highway between Kamloops and the Alberta border to improve reliability and to upgrade the highway to a modern, 100 kph, four-lane standard. Completed improvements have added over 60 kilometres of four lanes to the Trans-Canada Highway, increasing four-laning along the corridor by close to 20%.

The total cost of both phases of the Pritchard to Hoffman’s Bluff project is $61.6 million. The Government of Canada is contributing up to a maximum of $26.9 million through the Building Canada Fund – Major Infrastructure Component. The Government of British Columbia is investing $34.7 million for this highway safety improvement.