Abstract Manager

Background Information:  

Highway 29 is a two-lane rural arterial roadway that connects the northern BC communities of Fort St. John and Hudson’s Hope. Due to impacts from the construction of the Site C Dam and the resultant reservoir, over 32 km of Highway 29 needed to be relocated.  

Objectives / Methodology: 

The objective was to relocate impacted sections of the Highway and bring them up to current standards prior to reservoir filling. The 32 km of new highway were broken down into the following six segments: 

• Cache Creek is the most eastern segment and consists of just under 9 km of realignment, including a 600 m long bridge.  

• The Halfway River segment included over 3 km of highway realignment and the construction of a 1.1 km long bridge - the longest bridge in Northern BC.  

• The Farrell Creek East segment included 2.7 km of highway realignment. 

• The Farrell Creek segment included 1.9 km of realignment and the construction of a 400 m long bridge. 

• Dry Creek included close to 1.5 km of highway realignment and the construction of a 160 m long bridge. 

• Lynx Creek is the most western segment of the project and consisted of just under 9 km of highway realignment, including a 150 m long bridge. 

Key Issues: 

The Binnie team considered and successfully addressed the following critical issues as part of our design: 

• Geotechnical constraints that included highly erodible soils, unstable slopes, and potentially acid generating rock. 

• Impacts to an existing recreational site/boat launch that required the team to identify two new locations that would be operational when the reservoir is in place. 

• The potential for the existing alignment to be flooded from the head pond formed during the construction of the Site C Dam. 

• The need for over 3 million m3 of borrow material that resulted in Binnie creating a detailed material management plan. 

• The potential for landslide-generated waves that could impact re-aligned sections of Highway. 

Conclusions: 

This project was delivered jointly between BC Hydro and The BC Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure and consisted of several construction packages/contracts. The project was substantially completed in 2023, with all six segments in operation.