page_title: Trans-Canada Highway
section_title: British Columbia
hierarchical_section_title: Trans-Canada Highway / Route description / Western Canada / British Columbia
caption_attribution_description: English: In this true-colour, photo-like image of Glacier National Park, the park appears predominantly in shades of green and white. In between richly vegetated valleys—one of which holds a major roadway—snowy white peaks cast long shadows toward the north. The Trans-Canada Highway passes through the park, appearing as a pale grey line.
context_page_description: The Trans-Canada Highway is a transcontinental federal-provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada from the Pacific Ocean on the west to the Atlantic on the east. The main route spans 7,821 km across the country, one of the longest routes of its type in the world. The highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers, although there are small variations in the markers in some provinces.
  Throughout much of Canada, there are at least two routes designated as part of the Trans-Canada Highway. For example, in the western provinces, both the main Trans-Canada route and the Yellowhead Highway are part of the Trans-Canada system. Although the TCH, being strictly a transcontinental route, does not enter any of Canada's three northern territories or run to the Canada–US border, the Trans-Canada Highway forms part of Canada's overall National Highway System, providing connections to the Northwest Territories, Yukon and the border, although the NHS is unsigned.
context_section_description: The Trans-Canada Highway, uniformly designated as Highway 1 in the four western provinces, begins in Victoria, British Columbia at the intersection of Douglas Street and Dallas Road (where the "Mile 0" plaque stands) and passes northward along the east coast of Vancouver Island for 99 km (62 mi) to Nanaimo. Short freeway segments of the TCH can be found near Victoria and Nanaimo, but the rest of the highway on Vancouver Island operates mostly as a heavily signalized low-to-limited-mobility arterial road that does not bypass any of its areas of urban sprawl, particularly Nanaimo and Duncan.
  The section of Highway 1 that crosses the Malahat northwest of Victoria has no stoplights yet, but is tightly pinched by rugged terrain that prevents comprehensive widening to four lanes and sometimes forces closure for hours at a time after a traffic accident. The Departure Bay ferry is the only marine link on the Trans-Canada system that has no freeway or other high mobility highway access, instead routing TCH traffic through downtown Nanaimo streets to reach the ferry to Vancouver.
  The Vancouver Island TCH is one of four parts of the Trans-Canada system in which the highway runs mostly north-south, the others being Highway 1 from Hope to Cache Creek, Ontario Highway 17 from White River to Sault Ste Marie, Ontario Highways 69 and 400 from Sudbury to Waubaushene, Autoroute 85/Route 185 from Autoroute 20 in Quebec to the New Brunswick border. The Trans-Canada is otherwise designated as east-west from Nanaimo to St. John's.
  From Departure Bay, a 57 km (35 mi) ferry route (see BC Ferries) connects the highway to Horseshoe Bay in West Vancouver. At this point, the Trans-Canada Highway becomes a high mobility freeway and passes through the Vancouver metropolitan area, crossing the Fraser River with the Port Mann Bridge, which was electronically tolled between December 8, 2012 and September 1, 2017. From the Port Mann Bridge, the TCH heads east through the Fraser Valley to Hope covering a total distance of 170 km (110 mi) from the Horseshoe Bay ferry. At Hope, the TCH then exits the freeway and turns north for 186 km (116 mi) through the Fraser and Thompson Canyons toward Cache Creek as a mostly high mobility highway with only occasional mandatory stops, then east for 79 km (49 mi) where it re-enters a short freeway alignment (briefly concurrent with Highways 5 and 97) through Kamloops. From there, it continues east as a two to four lane expressway through Salmon Arm, Sicamous, Revelstoke, Rogers Pass, Golden, and Kicking Horse Pass (the highest point on the highway, at 1,627 m (5,338 ft)), to Field, British Columbia while passing by Yoho National Park.
  Using the South Fraser Perimeter Road (Highway 17) from Surrey to Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal, Vancouver Island or interior-bound traffic can bypass the busiest sections of Highway 1 in Metro Vancouver and the Horseshoe Bay-Departure Bay Ferry. Victoria-bound traffic can use the same highway as a shortcut that bypasses the entire circuitous Vancouver Island route of the Trans-Canada with its numerous traffic lights and bottlenecks.
  Speed limits on the British Columbia mainland segment of the Trans-Canada range from 80 to 110 km/h (50 to 68 mph). A combination of difficult terrain and growing urbanization limits posted speeds on the Vancouver Island section to 50 km/h (31 mph) in urban areas, 80 km/h across the Malahat and through suburban areas, and a maximum of 90 km/h in rural areas.
caption: The Trans-Canada Highway passing through Glacier National Park in British Columbia
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