Motorists using the George Massey Tunnel on Hwy. 99 are trying to adjust to a change to rush-hour counterflow operations that began Monday, as the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure upgrades the lane-control system.
The existing electronic lane-control system will be offline for four weeks and will be replaced with temporary manual counterflow operations while a new, $10-million system is installed.
During peak commuting times, traffic-control crews will manually install the counterflow using a combination of traffic-control vehicles, traffic-control personnel and cones and barriers, to safely guide traffic using the tunnel.
The manual counterflow will be in place from approximately 5:45 a.m. until 9:30 a.m., and 3 p.m. until 6:30 p.m. on weekdays, the same time windows that are currently in place for the counterflow until April 3.
The tunnel then will be closed overnight for four consecutive nights, April 4 through April 8, to complete the change to the new system, after which electronic counterflow will be back in operation.
Closure details and detours will be announced later in March.
The ministry said that the first morning of manual counterflow was monitored carefully, on site and remotely, and was completed without incident.
“The ministry, along with its maintenance contractor, will continue to monitor to ensure traffic moves efficiently and safely,” said an email to the Optimist from the ministry.
The new system will have a similar look and process to the previous system, but will provide increased safety and reliability, including brighter LEDs and better cameras to make switching the counterflow easier during rush hours.
During the period of manual counterflow operations, drivers are asked to use caution, obey the posted speed limit, watch for traffic-control personnel and check DriveBC for updates: https://www.DriveBC.ca.
