Highway 99 is a provincial highway in British Columbia that serves Greater Vancouver and the Squamish–Lillooet corridor over a length of 377 kilometres (234 mi). It is a major north–south artery within Vancouver and connects the city to several suburbs as well as the U.S. border, where it continues south as Interstate 5. The central section of the route, also known as the Sea to Sky Highway, serves the communities of Squamish, Whistler, and Pemberton. Highway 99 continues through Lillooet and ends at a junction with Highway 97 near Cache Creek. The highway's number, assigned in 1940, was derived from former U.S. Route 99, the predecessor to Interstate 5 and a major route for the U.S. West Coast. Highway 99 originally comprised the King George Highway in Surrey, portions of Kingsway from New Westminster to Vancouver, and local streets. It was extended across the Lions Gate Bridge and to Horseshoe Bay in the 1950s along a new highway that would later be incorporated into Highway 1 (the Trans-Canada Highway), which has a concurrency with Highway 99 in West Vancouver. Highway 99 was later moved to freeway sections in southern Surrey, Delta, and Richmond that opened beginning in the late 1950s. These sections, which included the George Massey Tunnel under the Fraser River, were numbered as Highway 499 until 1973. The highway's northern section was extended several times between 1959 and 1992 with the opening of routes beyond Whistler and Pemberton. For the 2010 Winter Olympics hosted by Vancouver and Whistler, the Sea to Sky Highway was rebuilt to increase safety and capacity—both of which had been longstanding issues with the highway as recreational and commercial traffic increased in the late 20th century. In 2006, the The Guardian newspaper from the United Kingdom listed the Sea to Sky as the fifth best road trip worldwide.
