In what shouldn't be a surprise given the amount of traffic on the daily, the intersection of Highway 99 and Cleveland Avenue in Squamish has been revealed as the top intersection for crashes in 2023, according to annual data released by ICBC.
For the 12 months of 2023 there were a total of 37 collisions at the major intersection, which connects downtown Squamish to Highway 99 and the rest of the world.
Overall, there were 324 crashes recorded by ICBC in Squamish for 2023—a minor dip from 2022, when there were 345 crashes.
For the Cleveland Avenue intersection with Highway 99, 2023's numbers are in line with the five years of reporting data made available by ICBC going back to 2019, showing that every year, that intersection is the intersection to be wary of in Squamish.
Over those five years, there have been 216 collisions recorded by ICBC there—more than double the number of collisions reported at the second-most dangerous intersection, which is the intersection of Highway 99 and Mamquam Road, where 88 crashes happened since 2019, of which 21 took place last year.
The ICBC data includes crashes that yielded only property damage and where there were casualties recorded—which means injuries or fatalities.
Crashes with casualties
For Squamish, there were 88 crashes in 2023 that saw casualties.
Of those 88 incidents, the Highway 99/Cleveland Avenue intersection was third for crashes with casualties, with only seven incidents last year. The top intersection for injuries and fatalities was the intersection of Highway 99 with Finch Drive and Industrial Way—where there were 10 crashes with casualties in 2023.
Overall, Highway 99 is unsurprisingly the centre of traffic accidents in Squamish.
Of the 324 crashes that happened within the Squamish reporting area, 148 of them were along the Sea to Sky Highway—or over 45% of all crashes, with the top five intersections being on Highway 99.
Besides the downtown turnoff to Cleveland, other intersections with Highway 99 making the top five were Mamquam Road (21), Finch Drive (17), Garibaldi Way (17), and Clarke Drive (12).
Excluding Highway 99, Cleveland Avenue was the next most dangerous road for collisions, with at least two crashes recorded for every intersection with the downtown road all the way to Main Street.
Crashes with cyclists
The data also included numbers on crashes involving cyclists, of which there were only four recorded by ICBC in Squamish in 2023. In the five years of data available, there have been 31 incidents recorded by ICBC involving cyclists.
A full spread of ICBC data from across the province can be accessed on the ICBC website. The annual numbers are updated each July.
