British Columbia Highway 99

British Columbia Highway 99

Highway 99, also known as the Sea to Sky Highway, the Squamish Highway, Route 99, or Whistler Highway, is the major north-south artery running through the Greater Vancouver area of British Columbia from the U.S. border, up Howe Sound through the Sea to Sky Country to Lillooet, and connecting to Highway 97 just north of Cache Creek. The number of this highway is derived from the old U.S. Route 99, with which the highway originally connected. The highway currently connects with Interstate 5 at the international border.

This highway received the '99' designation in 1942 upon completion of the King George Highway, and it originally shared an alignment with Highway 1 from Surrey to Vancouver. The current freeway alignment of Highway 99 between 8th Avenue in South Surrey and the North Arm of the Fraser River opened in 1962. Between 1964 and 1973, the freeway alignment of Highway 99 was designated Highway 499.

In 1957, the northern end of Highway 99 was moved from downtown Vancouver, across the Lions Gate Bridge and west to the village of Horseshoe Bay, following Marine Drive through West Vancouver. Highway 99 was re-aligned via Taylor Way, just east of the Park Royal Shopping Centre, to the Upper Levels Highway and extended to Britannia Beach one year later, extending to Squamish in 1959, and to Pemberton in 1966. Finally, in 1992, the just-paved Duffey Lake Road between Pemberton and Lillooet was made part of Highway 99, and the section of Highway 12 between Lillooet and Highway 97 was re-numbered 99. The portion of the highway between Lillooet and Pavilion was part of the route of the Old Cariboo Road.

The total length of Highway 99 from the U.S. border to the Highway 97 junction is 409 kilometres (254 mi). In 2006 the UK's The Guardian newspaper listed the Sea to Sky as the 5th best road trip.

Read more about British Columbia Highway 99:  Exit List

Famous quotes containing the words british, columbia and/or highway:

    It is said that the British Empire is very large and respectable, and that the United States are a first-rate power. We do not believe that a tide rises and falls behind every man which can float the British Empire like a chip, if he should ever harbor it in his mind.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.
    —The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on “life” (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)

    The highway presents an interesting study of American roadside advertising. There are signs that turn like windmills; startling signs that resemble crashed airplanes; signs with glass lettering which blaze forth at night when automobile headlight beams strike them; flashing neon signs; signs painted with professional touch; signs crudely lettered and misspelled.... They extol the virtues of ice creams, shoe creams, cold creams;...
    —For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)