It’s potentially an off-ramp to confusion for commuters.
Exit 22A off Highway 1 in North Vancouver will be permanently closed March 13.
The off-ramp taken by many commuters heading to Capilano University and the Holiday Inn is slated to be blocked to allow construction on the Fern Street overpass connecting Keith Road to Mount Seymour Parkway and Lillooet Road, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
The closure will force drivers bound for the Lynnmour area to detour off Exit 23B at Dollarton Highway, make a left on Riverside Drive followed by another left onto Mount Seymour Parkway. Another detour option is to take Exit 23A, which loops off the highway onto lower Mountain Highway to East Keith Road. Lastly, drivers can stay on the Trans Canada Highway until they hit Exit 21 and take East Keith Road.
The detours will likely result in commutes lengthening by two to eight minutes, according to the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure.
Those figures are optimistic, according to resident Alexandra Lyde-Stad.
“It is clear no one at MOTI has actually tried driving these routes,” Lyde-Stad wrote in an email.
With exacerbating factors such as ongoing construction and rush hour traffic volumes, Lyde-Stad anticipated “at best” the detours will add 10 minutes to commutes.
Having drivers turn left on southbound Mountain Highway will lead to traffic backups, overcrowding and accidents, she wrote.
Drivers will also be slowed along Riverside Drive, Lyde-Stad predicted, noting there is a bus stop but no bus pullout along the street.
As a solution, Lyde-Stad said the ministry should reconfigure Exit 22B to add a northbound lane.
Exit 22B to Mount Seymour Parkway is slated to stay open but there will be no access to Lillooet Road, according to the Ministry of Transportation. The ministry nixed the idea of merging Lillooet Road and Mount Seymour Parkway traffic onto Exit 22B over concerns about highway backups.
Once completed, however, the new 22B exit will accommodate Lillooet Road and Mount Seymour Parkway off-ramp traffic, avoiding Keith Road eastbound traffic.
Temporary detours are in place for vehicles travelling north on Lillooet Road to the Lynnmour neighbourhood, Capilano University and Inter River Park. However, Lyde-Stad noted the traffic to Inter River Park may be complicated by the District of North Vancouver’s plans to add 72,500 tonnes of sand to compress the former landfill site before building the new artificial turf field. Work on the field is set to begin in late April or early May.
Frustrations about the exit closure have been compounded by a lack of information, according to Lynnmour resident Bruce Higgins. “They must have known a year ago they were going to build this overpass and to give (a few) days’ notice just seems ridiculous,” he said.
The closure is crucial to the $198-million Lower Lynn project, according to the ministry. The project is designed to quicken commutes via a new Mountain Highway eastbound highway on-ramp and two westbound lanes connecting Mount Seymour Parkway and Mountain Highway, among other improvements.
The detours will be a major problem for visitors to Capilano University and the Holiday Inn who aren’t necessarily familiar with the area, Higgins said.
The ministry is working with the District of North Vancouver to reduce commuting times or eliminate the need for detours, according to the ministry.
That work will include monitoring traffic flow and collision rates in the area.
TransLink does not run any buses through Exit 22A.
