Traffic at a crawl on Highway 97 in West Kelowna is a familiar scene for motorists.

And that’s why West Kelowna’s new city council is asking the province to revisit a transportation ministry initiative to build a bypass at Boucherie Road, and another one a little further up the highway at Westlake and  Hudson Roads.

Mayor Gord Milsom says the traffic problem on Highway 97 comes down to numbers — more people means more vehicles.

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“When we incorporated, there was 27,000 people living in the city of West Kelowna,” said Milsom. “Now we’re at about 35,000.”

West Kelowna council’s call for interchanges is a switch, seeing that the previous council did not support the idea, preferring a bypass around the city.

But Milsom says something has to be done about the growing congestion problem because it’s spilling into residential neighbourhoods.

“Commuters are taking side roads,” said Milsom.

One favourite spill-over route is Sneena Road and Tomat Avenue, where residents say they’ve noticed a remarkable increase in traffic and say it has become a safety hazard.

Resident Fred Sichello says the number of vehicles travelling in front of his home daily has gone from hundreds to thousands.

“We had about 200 to 300 vehicles going through here in front of our house every day,” said Sichello. “And now we’re up to — a very low estimate — I would say up to 4,000.”

So bypasses can’t come soon enough for Sichello and thousands of motorists and Milsom says the province is open to the idea.

“My understand is that Ministry of Transportation would like to meet with us in the new year to discuss the potential projects,” said Milsom.

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