Improvements to B.C.’s famous Sea To Sky Highway have local contractors driving in the fast lane.

Construction on the winding, sometimes deadly route from West Vancouver to Whistler is turning out to be a potential boon for local construction as three private consortiums selected to bid on the $600-million private-public partnership await the winning nod.

“We call it the Big One,” says Colin Taylor, project engineer in the Vancouver office of Peter Kiewit Sons Co., a Nebraska-based Fortune 500 firm.

“Once the preliminary work is complete, the DBFO (design, build, finance, operate) is up to tender and it has a 30-year maintenance contract that goes along with it. It is a huge job.”

Karen Dyer, Business Edge
McElhanney Consulting Services project surveyor Eddie Neumann checks out early progress on the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project.

The ministry has narrowed the list down to three possible consortiums, which include more than 30 Canadian and international companies. The three consortiums – the Black Tusk Highway Group, S2S Transportation Group and Sound Highway Development Consortium – have until mid-November to complete and submit their plans, followed by a three- to six- month review-of-tender process. The winning bid will be announced next spring, and construction will begin almost immediately.

The B.C. government has said it is committed to awarding all tenders to local firms. Ministry of Transportation spokesperson Cam MacMurchy says there have been about $20 million in contracts awarded to local engineering and management firms to date.

Peter Milburn, executive project director for the Sea to Sky Highway Improvement Project, said local companies – from contractors to service firms to flagging crews – have good reason to be excited about the huge undertaking.

“Local service industries will reap the benefits of this project. This includes everything from hotels to catering to companies that provide safety supplies to the workers,” Milburn says.

“Really, anyone who has a business along the Sea to Sky corridor will benefit from this project . . . individuals and companies that are regular highway users will find they have safer, more efficient travel time with lower accident rates. This includes local logging companies, as well as transportation, delivery and commerce.”

The B.C. government has known for some time that this bumpy road to the 2010 Olympic Games would require a major overhaul. The Sea to Sky, which stretches from Exit 0 on the Trans-Canada Highway in West Vancouver north through Squamish to Whistler, has long been on the government radar as one of the most treacherous stretches of roadway in the province.

The highway clings to the rugged, mountainous coastline of Howe Sound to Squamish, where it veers away from the water and deep into the Coast Mountains to Whistler, Pemberton and beyond. Featuring just two lanes, steep slopes and blind curves, it has been the scene of dozens of fatal accidents over the years.

Provincial governments had long vowed to address the safety issues, but with the successful bid for the 2010 Olympic Games, the Sea to Sky suddenly vaulted to the head of the Campbell government’s priority list.

Public consultation along the Sea To Sky corridor has brought some resolution, but large sections of the highway remain in dispute. The District of West Vancouver is now planning a legal challenge to the environmental approval process in order to reinforce its preference for a tunnel route over the province’s choice of an overland route near Horseshoe Bay.

The Transportation Ministry is ultimately responsible for converting the winding, two-lane arterial into a safe, mostly four-lane route for travellers by the target year of 2009, if not earlier.

On paper, the department has segmented the highway into 13 separate sections, each with its own challenges for reconstruction. Preliminary work is required on three of the sections of the highway before the final contract to complete the entire project is awarded.

One of the preliminary test sections is the doubling of lanes along a one-kilometre stretch of highway north of Horseshoe Bay, a project recently completed by Emil Anderson Construction Ltd. of Hope.

Frank Jacobs, vice-president of Emil Anderson, is satisfied with the completion of the section.

“I believe it worked out well for us, for the ministry and for the travelling public,” Jacobs says, noting that he was pleased traffic disruptions were held to a minimum during the project.

“The biggest challenge we faced was that there was no land where they needed us to add two lanes. We had to figure out how to either suspend the highway or build walls from the bottom up. In some places, the cliffs went right down onto the railway tracks below. In the end we had to do a wholesale redesign of the project. If you look at the original drawing and compare it to the result, everything is different.”

Emil Anderson is a part of the larger Black Tusk consortium bidding on the final highway project, a group that also includes German-based construction powerhouse Bilfinger Berger BOT Inc. and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“All the teams have big money at the top and local consultants,” Jacobs notes.

Peter Kiewit Sons, working under the auspices of the larger S2S Transportation Group – which also includes Macquarie North America Ltd. and UMA Engineering Ltd. – has been the successful proponent for the other two preliminary work projects on the highway.

“Currently we’re just finishing up some preliminary survey and geo- technical work, and then we will proceed to the design and build element of the section of highway between Sunset Beach and Lions Bay,” says Kiewit’s Taylor. “We’re contracted to convert this section of highway from two to four lanes.”

Taylor notes that this is the last of the small sections of highway to be completed before tender is awarded for the large project.

Peter Kiewit Sons has subcontracted some of the preliminary work to McElhanney Consulting Services, a Vancouver company with offices in B.C., Alberta and southeast Asia.

Competition for the large bid is intense and private. Lead design manager Steve Hobbs notes that McElhanney workers were required to sign a confidentiality agreement regarding their contributions to the project.

“The preliminary work on the highway is done by the ministry,” notes Rick Hyde, community relations manager for the Sea To Sky Improvement Project team. “Once the contracts are awarded, the project team hires local sub-contractors.”

Another of the local businesses that has benefited from this contract is GTM Consulting of West Vancouver, which is working with the provincial government to review all information with regard to traffic considerations. GTM communicates with the various companies on each site under construction along the highway and relays traffic impacts to the general public by way of newspaper announcements, a website and a toll-free phone number.

Government contracts to these local businesses are renewable annually.

(Karen Dyer can be reached at karen@businessedge.ca)