Two months after it was washed out by flooding and mudslides, Highway 1 between Kanaka Bar and Spences Bridge reopened to almost all traffic Friday.

However, Brad Bushill, the Thompson Nicola Operations Manager for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure, tells NL News it won’t be the same highway that people remember.

“These are in a lot of cases temporary repairs and we have size limitations on that route now as well,” he told NL News. “25 metres is the length of vehicle that we can accommodate because of a couple of really tight accesses onto and off of temporary bridges near Nicomen.”

He says another major change that drivers will notice will be at Tank Hill, east of Lytton, which will now be an at-grade railroad crossing instead of a highway underpass.

“You don’t go underneath the tracks any more,” Bushill said. “That will create a couple of different traffic light systems there to hold traffic when a train goes by.”

“It is an ever evolving work site down there so it is going to keep on getting better and better and better as the days go on.”

Drivers are being warned that there will be significant delays of up to two-hours over the regular travel time from Hope to Spences Bridge, travel advisories due to winter driving conditions, and reduced speed limits because of active work sites.

“Construction crews are going to continue working as they can given the weather conditions and things. You’ve got to remember this is the wrong time of the year to be doing road construction work,” Bushill said. “It is not very favourable at all but yeah, we’ll have construction crews still working.

“We have our area managers out there monitoring the road systems and of course we have our contractor Yellowhead Road and Bridge maintaining the road system as best they can.”

Highway 1 from Kanaka Bar to Hope still closed

Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure says record snow and the risk of avalanches has delayed construction work on the stretch of Highway  1 between Hope and Kanaka Bar.

Bushill says crews are waiting for the weather to improve before working on that stretch of highway.

“We’re really at the whim of Mother Nature right now with the weather systems that are coming in. There are certain things that we can do when avalanche risk gets to a certain level and we can mitigate some of the risks but a lot of times we have to just to these temporary closures and let the snowpack settle,” he said.

“Once it does, we do have our avalanche technicians check everything and make sure it is in good shape so they can open it safely, and they will.”

In all, the ministry says there were 15 locations on Highway 1 between Hope and Spences Bridge that sustained significant damage after a series of atmospheric rivers in mid-November which led to extensive flooding, landslides, and washouts.

“Regarding the construction at Jackass Mountain, that is being handled from the Lower Mainland side and they are making really good progress on that as well but that site is going to look a little bit different as well,” Bushill added.

“It is going to have a temporary bridge while they continue to work on that massive erosion there at Jackass. So there will be delays there as well.”

If all goes to plan, Highway 1 could fully reopen to traffic by the end of January, with Bushill noting the goal is to try and get it back to what is used to be before the floods.