With the final full-day closure taking place on Tuesday, work is on track for Highway 4 to reopen to two-way traffic by the end of the week, according to the Ministry of Transportation.
The highway has had full or single-lane closures every day since June 6, when the Cameron Bluffs wildfire forced the closure of the road. Work to repair damage and ensure the safety of the road has been ongoing since June.
Now, work is wrapping up to allow Highway 4 to reopen to two-way traffic.
“We do have another closure today, we didn’t have that mid-opening flush that we typically have, and that was in order for our scalers to do some of the last sort of key scaling that we needed to get them to keep us on track towards the reopening this week,” Janelle Staite, deputy regional director with B.C.’s Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure told CHEK News.
“So scaling is going well, we’ve chatted with the folks on the site and rocks are continuing to come down, but it’s looking really, really good.”
There will be some more scaling required on Wednesday, but Staite says it will be able to be completed in the typical scheduled daily closures from 9 a.m. to 11:30 a.m., then 1:30 p.m. to 5 p.m.
While some parts of the Island saw rain today, Staite says it wasn’t enough to postpone the work that was scheduled for today, so crews were able to do what was needed.
Once scaling wraps up, rock barriers will be installed, which is anticipated to occur on Thursday.
“We should have a really strong indication of the timeline for reopening on Friday,” Staite said. “And again, that’s what we’re aiming at and the weather continues to work in our favour even as we look further into the week here so we are looking like we have the conditions to put us on track before that Labour Day weekend.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article said there was a full day closure planned for Thursday. The last full-day closure took place on Tuesday.
Laura Brougham
