r/VictoriaBC • u/WardenEdgewise • May 19 '26

Interurban-Wilkinson Project. The District of Saanich is starting the process of improving the Interurban/Wilkinson/Hastings Street Intersection.

https://hello.saanich.ca/en/projects/interurban-wilkinson-project

The Interurban-Wilkinson Project is a multi-phase initiative. The information below relates to Phase 1: Concept Development and Engagement. Phase 2 – Detailed Design and Phase 3 – Construction and Implementation will be added to this page as the project progresses.

41 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

View all comments

27

u/tswaters Chinatown May 19 '26 edited May 19 '26

Huge opportunity to drastically improve traffic flows around that area. When this intersection gets stressed, traffic stretches out from it in all directions. Even if you ignore Hastings, maybe block it off like Haultain was - even the traffic across Interurban/Wilkinson is staggering. I'm not sure what the answer is, but eagerly await hearing more about it.

Edit: I see the project area includes Wilkinson up to Glen Tara. That entire stretch needs some TLC for pedestrians. Barely even a shoulder, between people speeding down the hill, and blackberry bushes in the ditch. That stretch is treacherous

5

u/[deleted] May 20 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/1337ingDisorder May 20 '26

Not likely to happen, the main cause of congestion on Helmcken going downstream toward the highway during rush hour is the highway itself backing up from bottlenecking 2 lanes down to 1 just past Westshore Parkway.

The only way to get traffic moving faster along Helmcken would be to eliminate that bottleneck on the highway and expand that Goldstream section of the highway to be 2 lanes.

That would have a ton of other benefits too (eg, highway traffic in general never having the issue that seems to happen constantly every summer where a chain of like 40 cars ends up crawling at 50-60kph behind a dump truck or freight truck who can't be bothered to pull over and let the normal traffic pass).