Invest Kelowna - Transportation, Communications, & Utilities Information

Total passenger activity in 2002 was 839,654, a decrease of 1% from 2001 when volumes reached record levels for the fifth year in a row with 850,311 arriving and departing passengers passing through the terminal facility.

In 2002, Central Mountain Air became the fourth scheduled air carrier, joining Air Canada, Horizon Air and WestJet, in serving a catchment area of over 250,000 people including the cities of Kelowna, Vernon and a number of smaller communities in the southern interior of B.C.

Service is offered to five major international airports: Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver and Toronto. Non-stop service is also provided to a number of other communities in Western Canada including Victoria, Abbotsford, Kamloops, and Prince George. Central Mountain Air provides service to Abbotsford, Fort St. John, Terrace, Kamloops, Smithers, Dawson Creek, and Prince George. Horizon Air provides direct service to Seattle.

Road

Highway 97 runs north-south through Kelowna and the Central Okanagan and provides a direct route to the United States via Wenatchee, Washington and connects to the Trans-Canada Highway 1 at Monte Creek, near Salmon Arm and Sicamous (approximately 120km north).

The Okanagan Connector, completed in the fall of 1990, provides a convenient link between the Central Okanagan and the Coquihalla Highway. The Connector that runs from Peachland to Meritt makes driving time between Kelowna and the Lower Mainland approximately 3½ to 4 hours.

Highways follow the Pacific Corridor from Alaska to California. The Pacific Northwest with a market of 46 million is within two days of trucking.

Rail
For passenger transportation, both BC Rail and VIA Rail offer passenger stops in Kamloops, however they do not pick up and deliver passengers in Kelowna. BC Rail runs north/south between North Vancouver and Prince George, while VIA Rail serves communities moving eastward from Vancouver towards Alberta. The Okanagan Valley Railway provides rail service to and from CPR’s east-west main line at Sicamous. The Kelowna Pacific Railway has recently taken over as the short line operator of the Canadian National line with rights over the 77-km (40-miles) between Kamloops to Kelowna and Vernon to Lumby.

To date, the Okanagan Valley Railway has transported a wide variety of products including forest products, grain and industrial products. The entry of Kelowna Pacific Railway provides more options in getting products to more markets.

Communications

The Okanagan valley is well served by state-of-the-art telecommunications facilities and high speed networks. Firms moving to the area have a choice of competing suppliers of fibre optic networks at virtually any desired bandwidth. High speed connectivity is also available from cable suppliers, DSL services, or wireless connections from local ISP’s.

Utilities - Electricity

Aquila Networks Canada provides generation, transmission, distribution and residential and business services to more than 135,000 customers in South-Central British Columbia. Aquila services areas east of Okanagan Lake and the West Kootenays.

B.C. Hydro is a provincial crown corporation and is regulated by the Utilities Commission. This corporation belongs to British Columbia and is a business run without subsidies from government. The company is one of the largest electric utilities in Canada serving more than 1.6 million customers. B.C. Hydro’s mission is to provide integrated energy solutions to customers in an environmentally and socially responsible manner.

Utilities – Natural Gas

Teresen Gas is the largest distributor of natural gas in British Columbia. Gas distribution business serves 762,000 customers in more than 100 communities. The company also provides services and supplies related to energy and water distribution.