British Columbia Roads - BC 99



Named after the former US 99, BC 99 now connects directly to I-5 instead. But I-5 runs over US 99's old bridges in Washington, so it's all good.


Shell Rd. NB in Richmond has an old style of guide sign shield that looks like a caricature of the actual shield.


BC 99 SB tunnels under the Fraser River.


An interesting distance sign in hectometres precedes the NB tunnel entrance. Click to play the video and drive back toward Vancouver. You'll see the tunnels have contraflow lanes for rush hour traffic.


Looking east along SW Marine Dr. in South Vancouver at the northernmost overpass on the BC 99 freeway. After this, BC 99 dumps onto surface streets. It's pretty much all tourist traffic from Seattle and Bellingham, WA, but there are plenty of commuters who need to head north into the city. Since there's no freeway serving downtown, the main north-south streets are all overcrowded.


Looking west in the same spot. Fun fact: BC 99 uses 70th Ave. to get from the freeway alignment (Oak St.) to the surface alignment (Granville St.), not Marine Dr. Second fun fact: BC 99 does follow a Marine Drive, but it's the one in West Vancouver, not this one.


If you fail to turn on 70th Ave. and continue straight from the freeway onto Oak St., these old shields will help keep you on course. (Oak St. just might have less traffic than Granville St. on some or most mornings.) The last old shield is on 12th Ave. WB at BC 99.


Somewhere south of Vancouver after the freeway has ended.


The Granville Bridge is mostly nondescript from above. The first photo is the north portal to the bridge and the second photo looks east from Sunset Beach Park. I tried to get a photo of the old 27 tonne weight limit sign, but that's what 5:30 AM ambient light will do. I did a little better photographing the Burrard St. Bridge to the west.


SB on BC 99 in Vancouver is also EB on BC 1A - or was until 2016, but I was there in 2004. 1A functioned as Business TCH 1 more or less, running into the city while the freeway bypasses it to the north and east. A rump of it may still officially exist, entirely multiplexed with BC 99 from TCH 1 to the city boundary along the Lions Gate Bridge, which of course begs the question why.


This is also SB on BC 99 in Vancouver (at Bute St.). This photo dates to 2013, which is 7 years after BC 99A was decommissioned. BC 1A still existed, so this should just be a 1A and a 99, not a 1 and a 99A.


I took a picture of a camera. Am I that geeky? Was that question too easy? You made me sad, so I'm not going to explain to you how that's just telling you about traffic enforcement.


The Lions Gate Bridge, world-famous suspension crossing of the Burrard Inlet. It only carries three lanes (middle is reversible), and traffic really demands a parallel span, but the architectural beauty of the bridge can at best be approximated, never duplicated, certainly not surpassed.


Water views, looking up from a cruise line and then looking east past the Point Atkinson lighthouse from the Horseshoe Bay-Departure Bay ferry. Sorry, didn't get a picture from the air to complete the series.


True to its name, there are Lions on the Gate to the Bridge. They only guard the northbound approach though, because it's coming out of the Lions Gate. Southbound traffic gets no protection.


Now heading south across the heavily used bridge. Look, there's a reversible lane so you can get two lanes of traffic downtown from the northern suburbs in the morning! That's plenty of capacity.


Continuing south through Stanley Park, there are a lot of sparkly lights to distract tired drivers at dawn. It's nice to provide lane use arrows where there are 5 lanes, but that is meaningless when the bridge only has 3.


BC 99 NB/BC 1A WB at the northerly of the two Marine Drives in 2004, where the routes turn westward on their way to meet BC Trans-Canada 1. There are North, West, and East Vancouvers, but sorry, no South.


Take the left fork and find yourself on Marine Drive together with these two routes (in 2013 now). The second photo is where BC 99 NB turns right on Taylor Way.

Into Washington on I-5
Over to the Burrard St. Bridge
To TCH 1
Onto Marine Drive
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