WHAT'S HAPPENING WITH THE HIGHWAY BYPASS?

Update: January 20, 2020

Welcome to another new year of opportunities, new friends and memories! And yet another year of talking about the bypass. There are locals within the community who’ll tell you they’ve been waiting 15 years for anything to happen. My personal “feeling” is that we could be waiting for 15 more. You’re welcome to disagree with me, of course. These are just my thoughts and all, and nothing more than thoughts at all. A blog is merely a great way to get them on the table so everyone can take a bite.

I’m inclined to regard the MOTI (Ministry of Transportation) as the group sent to identify a reasonable pathway to success and acceptance in the event that this project begins to come together one day. As they say, “a plan is just a starting point for a better plan”… “a bad plan is better than no plan”… “you gotta start somewhere”… or my recent favorite, “wow, that escalated quickly”. Remember, this thing is 20 years away. Whatever plan we’re able to agree upon, it’s reasonable to expect that it could be turned on its head in another 2 decades. DECADES!!! Do you think another 2600 homes at the north end of town would bring us back to the drawing board? Heck, we could have flying cars by then.

I believe the real decision to build or not-to build will be made by politicos, and that 80 million dollar decisions are rarely based on the opinions of homeowners in quiet communities who generally agree that they don’t like traffic. Since I don’t see any politicos at the bargaining table, and our Provincial Leaders haven’t dropped by for a cup of coffee or a peek at the highway, I expect that this project is destined to remain in the “getting-to-know-you” stages for quite some time.

I’m surely no expert here. I am no more an expert on this matter than you are. You’re welcome to disagree with everything I’ve said or will have to say. The decision for a bypass will be financial, based upon industry growth, economic development in the South Okanagan, and the overall benefit to the Province. After all, who’s paying for this thing? I can assure you, the District of Peachland doesn’t have enough money to do this on our own, which surely means that we won’t be making these decisions on our own, either.

As Peachland contributes so very little to the economy of BC, my feeling is that the South Okanagan hasn’t reached the necessary threshold for a project of this size to be viable just yet. It’s a lot of money. The Province of BC doesn’t have a history of spending money on roads that aren’t desperately needed, and although the wine industry is on its way to making waves internationally, I’m not quite sure we’re there yet. Westbank is exploding. Kelowna & the North are exploding. The sleepy South is still… sleepy.

Our fate lies in waiting for a politician to come along who is eager to develop the tourism and wine-industry surrounding us. There aren’t many economic drivers left to exploit in the province, so perhaps Peachland could be a significant contributor to this one day? For now, (in a business sense anyway), we’re little more than a lovable lake-side bottleneck with 3 traffic lights, 1 gas-station and no doctor’s office. The bottle-neck is getting undeniably troublesome, which is why MOTI has joined us at the bargaining table and the discussions are getting more involved. They must pave the way for Peachlanders to accept that the future is coming one day, and despite our many discussions and information sessions, there’s a good chance we might not like it when it gets here. If the future means turning Peachland into a 4 to 6 lane highway, then there will have to be a significant amount of planning for this outcome. We’ll need decades to prepare.

MID-WAY POINT: EXPANDING THE TOPIC… KEEP READING IF YOU LIKE!

So, when could any of this actually happen?

MOTI says 2040. Haha, I say! In light of multiple collisions and fresh deaths at both ends of our community in the past month, I find it hard to believe that this could wait another 20 years. Then again, why not? How many deaths have been attributed to “Driver Error” through Roger’s Pass over the decades? A winding downhill 2-lane highway through the forest without barriers, reflectors or lighting of any kind is surely going to send unwitting drivers to the grave from time-to-time. By whatever matrix these evaluations are made, this somehow seems to be acceptable to the powers-that-be. I’m talking about Antler’s Hill, by the way. If you’d rather talk about Drought Hill, it’ll work just as well.

I’m certain that our Provincial Leadership will have to do something when the Peachland bottleneck gets bad enough, or perhaps when industry numbers to the south of us are so explosive that opportunities for economic development can no longer be denied. Road dangers? I’m not sure these numbers stand very well on their own.

Is traffic bad? Sure, it’s definitely getting there. I had a MOTI fella ask me if the new highway through Westbank had made traffic any better, and I had to pinch myself to keep from laughing. Every street from one end of West Kelowna to the other funnels into a single highway broken up by a dozen traffic lights. You’re telling me that this was supposed to make traffic better? Have you driven the Deerfoot?

My outlook is a little cynical, but deservedly so. Everyone has a licence to be cynical about traffic… it took me almost 1.5 hours to get to a real-estate course in Kelowna last week. Sure, the weather was bad, but there were no accidents. The MOTI (Ministry of Transportation) sent an 8-person delegation to work through options and presentations with Council a number of times last year. Plainly, the technical elements of their proposals were beyond the scope of the meetings (massive bridges, impassible terrain, etc.), but the general ideas were laid out for us to consider. Surprisingly (to me) we responded with a press-release shooting down every one of their proposals and declaring each as absolutely unacceptable to Peachland. MOTI responded as you or I may have expected: “fine… we’re outta here”.

The good news is that they’re coming back! It’s a difficult issue on many levels. It’s an emotional issue. It’s a complicated issue. Our community is divided on the issue. In my mind, the under-laying premise is that it’s all fortune-telling, anyway. Although another public consultation wasn’t initially in their game-plan, they’ve agreed to come back for another round, which I believe is a good thing. It’s one more reason to believe that they’re truly interested in hearing what we have to say. I do believe that they are listening, by the way.

Everyone needs to stay informed with respect to this project, at least casually. I can’t imagine another issue with the capacity to change the town so dramatically. I have to admit that there’s much that I don’t understand at this point, which is why I’m blogging about it here. I would appreciate your feedback!

I’m interested in hearing what role you think Peachland has to play in this. Whether or not you’d like a bypass is less relevant to me, as I’ve already expressed that I do not feel the decision will be entirely ours to make anyway. Yet, your opinions are welcome. The ideas we share and put forth to the MOTI should represent the needs of our community, ideas we agree upon, and how we’re setting ourselves up to engage the future.

Okay, so you still want to know if I want the bypass? Of course I do. Peachland would end up with an extra 5km of recreational lakefront. We’d be nuts to turn that down.