Fraser Highway is a major

arterial road An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below highway A highway is any public or private road or other public way on land. It includes not just major roads, but also other public roads and rights o ...

in the Lower Mainland of

British Columbia British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...

. Connecting the cities of

Surrey Surrey () is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South East England. It is bordered by Greater London to the northeast, Kent to the east, East Sussex, East and West Sussex to the south, and Hampshire and Berkshire to the wes ...

and Abbotsford, the highway formerly constituted a major portion of British Columbia Highway 1A until the latter was decommissioned in 2006. The highway is named for the

Fraser River The Fraser River () is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Blackrock Mountain (Canada), Blackrock Mountain in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia just south of the City of V ...

and the Fraser Valley, which are in turn named for the explorer Simon Fraser. The road was one of the first motor highways in British Columbia, being formed from portions of the Old Yale wagon road in the 1920s, and was known as the Inter-Provincial Highway but its importance as an east-west corridor was diminished with the construction of the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

in the 1960s. Nonetheless, it remains an important thoroughfare. Running roughly parallel to the Trans-Canada Highway, it is often used as an alternative or feeder route for it.

Route description

The Fraser Highway runs in a generally southeast-northwest direction, roughly paralleling the Trans Canada Highway to the north of it. It alternates back and forth between one lane each direction (total of 2 lanes) to two lanes each direction (total of 4 lanes) between rural and urban surroundings. Its western terminus is at King George Boulevard and 98th Avenue in the Whalley Town Centre of Surrey, just south of the King George SkyTrain Station. From there, it passes through the mixed residential, commercial, and rural neighbourhoods of Green Timbers,

Fleetwood Fleetwood is a coastal town in the Borough of Wyre in Lancashire, England, at the northwest corner of the Fylde. It had a population of 25,939 at the 2011 United Kingdom census, 2011 census. Fleetwood acquired its modern character in the 1830 ...

, and Cloverdale. Leaving Surrey, the route bisects the City of Langley, before entering the more rural neighbourhoods of Murrayville, and Aldergrove in Langley Township. The eastern terminus is at the Trans-Canada Highway, just east of Mount Lehman Road, in the Clearbrook neighbourhood of Abbotsford.

Major intersections

References

{{Streets in Vancouver Former British Columbia provincial highways Former segments of the Trans-Canada Highway Highways in Greater Vancouver Transport in Abbotsford, British Columbia Transport in Langley, British Columbia (city) Transport in Langley, British Columbia (district municipality) Transport in Surrey, British Columbia