Lowest Road in Canada

Recently I focused on the highest contiguous highway in the United States. Today I’d like to focus on the opposite situation in another place in North America.

What is the lowest road in Canada?

I love a good trick question. Canada’s lowest elevation is sea level, so the obvious answer would be any road that runs along the seacoast. Unfortunately, that would be wrong.

George Massey crossing business case received by government. Photo by Province of British Columbia; (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)
George Massey Tunnel

The lowest point on a public road in Canada runs through the George Massey Tunnel (map). It burrows under the Fraser River south of Vancouver International Airport, and at its lowest spot reaches down to twenty meters below sea level. The tunnel is a major section of Highway 99 that carries four lanes of airport and commuter traffic just a couple of kilometers east of the Strait of Georgia and near the ferry terminal at Tsawwassen. It’s so significant that there is an effort underway to add two more lanes.

The tunnel entrance is nearly at sea level as dictated by the surrounding terrain. The tunnel then needs to drop considerably to get under the river. This is where it goes below sea level and where it becomes the lowest road in Canada.

Comments

One response to “Lowest Road in Canada”

  1. Jeff Rundell Avatar
    Jeff Rundell

    The main US west coast highway from Mexico to Canada used to be US 99. It hit the Canadian border at Blaine, site of the Peace Arch. Canada built a highway that runs north from there to Vancouver, through the tunnel, and, being our friends and neighbors, they numbered theirs 99 as well.

    To thank them, we switched to the interstate system. Thus, Canada’s Highway 99 now meets up with our I 5.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Latest Comments

  1. Many of these comments are very interesting, have enjoyed reading. We cross several times a year as well going from…