Former Hope mayor recalls ceremonial drive over freshly opened Coquihalla Highway<\/p>\n
Published 5:00 am Friday, May 15, 2026<\/p>\n
Former Hope mayor Bud Gardner has a special memory of the opening of the Coquihalla Highway: he was in the car with then-premier Bill Bennett as it burst through the vinyl barrier at the Nicolum Creek Bridge to celebrate the occasion.<\/p>\n
Gardner recalls that the day \u2013 Friday, May 16, 1986 \u2013 was filled with fanfare and excitement.<\/p>\n
It began with a ceremony in Hope\u2019s Memorial Park, where breakfast was served to anyone who dropped by.<\/p>\n
Gardner, who was the mayor from 1978 to 1996, estimates there were around 2,000 people gathered for the opening speeches, including from Bennett, MLAs and MPs.<\/p>\n
Then, the dignitaries piled into convertibles to travel the new highway to Merritt.<\/p>\n
Gardner was in the lead car with Bennett and his wife, Audrey, as they started off the journey with the equivalent of a red-ribbon-cutting ceremony.<\/p>\n
The \u201cred ribbon\u201d in this case was a large vinyl barrier with a \u201cCoquihalla Highway 5\u201d logo, which the car drove through to mark the official opening of the new route.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a great day for me. I was mayor for almost 20 years, and this was probably one of the highlights of my mayoral career,\u201d Gardner said.<\/p>\n
The convoy drove to Merritt, where another large celebration was held similar to the one that had taken place in Hope.<\/p>\n
But Gardner said early discussions about a new highway being built from Hope into the Interior weren\u2019t always met with the same enthusiasm.<\/p>\n
He said some residents and business owners were concerned the route would bypass Hope and impact tourism in the community.<\/p>\n
Through ongoing discussions with the province, Hope officials were able to express those concerns.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter much negotiations and talking to them, they were really good to me. We decided together to have (the highway) close to Hope, where it is now, and that they would give us access into Hope,\u201d Gardner said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you wanted to get back on the highway, you would have to drive all the way through Hope to get on the other side to get back on.\u201d<\/p>\n
He said the community experienced a \u201cbit of a downturn\u201d for the first six months or so after the opening, particularly with Expo 86 being held in Vancouver at the same time.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople were using the highway, which was kind of a novelty for B.C., and were whipping right by, and people were heading for Expo,\u201d Gardner said.<\/p>\n
He said the situation reversed itself in a few months, resulting in a \u201csteady increase\u201d of people stopping by Hope for a break or a meal on their way elsewhere.<\/p>\n
Gardner said business in the community continued to pick up over the years, including new fast-food restaurants, and has remained stable.<\/p>\n
He said the Coquihalla has been \u201ca good highlight\u201d for Hope.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s been great for B.C., great for our community. I was proud to be part of it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former Hope mayor recalls ceremonial drive over freshly opened Coquihalla Highway Published 5:00 am Friday, May 15, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":671306,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[903,49,48,87674],"class_list":["post-671305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-surrey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=671305"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/671305\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/671306"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=671305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=671305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=671305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}