Many of us drive Highway 99 every day, and most weekends we share it with thousands of visitors heading to and from the mountains. That mix can make for complicated moments on the road. A local resident recently experienced a wrong-way driving incident on the Sea to Sky, a reminder that our community’s safety depends on clear roads, attentive driving, and fast reporting when something is not right.
Wrong-way travel is uncommon, but it’s high risk. Even a short stretch of a vehicle heading against traffic can lead to a serious collision. While details of the recent local encounter are limited, the concern it sparked is familiar to Squamish drivers: some highway access points can be confusing in poor light or bad weather; weekend congestion can heighten stress; and visitors who are new to the corridor may not anticipate local traffic patterns. Those conditions, taken together, are why residents are asking what can be done to reduce the chance of a repeat.
Highway 99 is under provincial jurisdiction, and the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure (MOTI) oversees design, signage, and major upgrades. The District of Squamish works with the Province on local priorities, especially where municipal roads meet the highway. Residents who encounter serious safety issues on Highway 99 can report them to police and to the provincial highway maintenance contractor for our service area; concerns about local streets should be sent to the District. If you’re unsure where to start, contacting Squamish RCMP for urgent risks and DriveBC or MOTI for non-urgent highway feedback is a practical approach.
Over the past 15 years, the Sea to Sky corridor has seen substantial provincial investment in safety: widened lanes in key segments, median and roadside barriers, rumble strips, improved sightlines, and new signs and electronic message boards. Those changes were meant to address the corridor’s unique challenges—steep grades, sudden weather shifts, wildlife crossings, and a heavy mix of commuter, commercial, and tourist traffic. Even with these improvements, it only takes one driver making a wrong turn for a dangerous situation to develop, which is why ongoing attention to design details and driver behaviour matters.
Community members often ask what, specifically, helps prevent wrong-way incidents. Transportation engineers typically look first at how drivers see and interpret the road environment. Measures that have proven effective in many places include larger and lower-mounted “Do Not Enter” and “Wrong Way” signs on ramps that can be misread; highly reflective pavement arrows that are easy to see at night and in rain; red retroreflective markers or tape visible to drivers travelling the wrong direction; and additional lane delineators or rumble strips that help keep vehicles oriented. Where geometry allows, physical features like median islands at ramp terminals can guide drivers into the correct lane from the start. MOTI has used many of these tools on BC highways, and residents who notice recurring confusion at a specific access point can ask the Province to review that location.
Local enforcement and education also play a role. The Squamish RCMP and BC Highway Patrol run regular enforcement along Highway 99, with added focus in peak periods and around impaired, distracted, and excessive-speed driving. Residents who see a vehicle travelling the wrong way or otherwise creating an immediate danger should call 911 when it’s safe to do so and be ready to share the vehicle description, location, and direction of travel. After the fact, dashcam video can be helpful to investigators if you are able to provide it. For non-emergency concerns—like a confusing sign or faded pavement markings—sending details to the provincial highway maintenance contractor and MOTI’s regional office helps trigger a review.
It’s also worth noting that small improvements in how we all drive can reduce the risk of a rare event becoming something worse. Slowing a little in areas with complex merges, keeping headlights and windshields clean for better night visibility, and leaving a gap ahead so you have room to react all buy precious seconds if something unexpected appears. For visitors and newer drivers in the corridor, understanding that highway access points in town can be busy and feel quick to navigate—especially around daily peak times and weekend traffic surges—can make a practical difference.
On the planning side, Squamish continues to grow, and with it the number of trips to schools, recreation areas, and neighbourhoods connected to Highway 99. The District’s transportation policies and traffic calming tools apply on municipal roads, but at the highway itself the Province leads. That is why residents often ask both the District and MOTI to study the same location—one for municipal approaches like sightline improvements on an approaching street, and the other for highway signage, markings, or ramp geometry. Coordinated attention is how many of the corridor’s notable safety upgrades have been delivered in the past.
Data helps guide those decisions. ICBC’s publicly available crash maps consistently show collisions clustering at major intersections and access points on Highway 99 through Squamish, which reflects where traffic volumes and turning movements are concentrated. While wrong-way events are not a common category on those maps, patterns of driver confusion can show up in other ways—such as sideswipe and rear-end crashes at complex merges. When residents flag a spot that “doesn’t feel right,” it can prompt a closer look at lighting, signs, lane lines, and geometry alongside that broader collision picture.
So what happens next? We have asked MOTI and Squamish RCMP if a signage or design review is planned at the access point tied to the recent local report. We have also asked whether any additional seasonal enforcement or awareness steps are being considered heading into the busier months. Official comment is pending, and we will update readers as soon as information is confirmed.
In the meantime, residents who want to add their observations can do a few constructive things. If you’ve noticed recurring confusion at a particular on- or off-ramp, document what you see and when it tends to happen—time of day, weather, and direction all help. Share that with MOTI through their regional contacts or the provincial reporting channels listed on DriveBC, and copy the District for awareness if a municipal street connects to the issue. If you have dashcam footage of a serious safety concern, preserve it and contact Squamish RCMP. And if you are part of a neighbourhood association, consider inviting a traffic engineer or road-safety advocate to a meeting to walk through practical countermeasures that can be requested.
Squamish has a strong record of community-led safety improvements—everything from better crosswalks to speed reader boards started with residents raising concerns and agencies responding with data and practical fixes. Highway 99 requires the same steady, solutions-focused approach. With clear reporting, targeted enforcement, and a fresh look at signs and markings where drivers may be getting turned around, we can keep rare incidents from turning into tragedies.
We will post updates as we receive them. For urgent hazards on Highway 99, call 911. For highway maintenance or signage concerns, use the contact information provided for our service area on DriveBC or the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure website. For municipal street issues, the District of Squamish accepts service requests through its online portal. We have asked the Ministry whether the area tied to the recent report will be reviewed for safety improvements and will share its response when available.
