Presentation Summary

The extreme rainfall events in November 2021 had major impacts on highways and highway structures throughout southern British Columbia.  The events caused closures on Highway 1, Highway 3, Highway 5 (Merritt to Hope), and Highway 99 (30 km west of Lillooet), and many other BC highways.  Of note, the closures of these major highways temporarily cut off land access between the Lower Mainland from the rest of Canada, which led to various supply chain interruptions and severed access to communities.  With over 20 damaged locations on Highway 5, the BC MOTI, professional engineering communities, and local Road Builders worked tirelessly to repair them with an aim to reopen Highway 5 as soon as possible.  In the end, Highway 5 was successfully reopened to essential and commercial traffic on December 21, 2021, just a month after the extreme rainfall events.  This presentation is focused on the traffic management designs to reopen Highway 5 and the lessons learned.

Presenter: Jonathan Ho, P.Eng., PTOE – MOT Design Lead with Kiewit

About the Presenter

Jonathan Ho is a Transportation Engineer with over 15 years of consulting engineering experience.  He is currently the MOT Design Lead with Peter Kiewit Sons ULC, where he is working on the Trans Mountain Expansion Project’s Spread 5B and the Highway 5 Repair Project.  His past traffic management experience included the Broadway Subway Extension, FortisBC LMIPSU Project, and Canada Line.