Long waits at ferries, border mark the end to May holiday

Congestion on Highway 1 and long waits for ferries and at the U.S. border marked the end of the Victoria Day long weekend.

It was slow going for drivers on Hwy. 1 on Monday morning after a car crashed and veered off the freeway, east of Whatcom Road, and rolled over, landing on the grassy median.

Westbound traffic was shut down for a few hours after the incident, which happened at around 8:30 a.m. An air ambulance could be seen landing on the road and transporting one person to hospital.

Traffic was heavy on Hwy. 1 stretching from Chilliwack, Abbotsford and Langley, due to the volume of vehicles returning home after the May long weekend, considered the unofficial kickoff to summer.

At the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway border crossings Saturday, vehicles idled in line as long as three hours. By Monday evening the lineups into the U.S. had vanished with more vehicles streaming back to Canada — the Canadian Border Services Agency reporting wait times of about an hour.

Ferries, too, saw their share of congestion. High demand slowed down the Queen of Capilano, which travels between Horseshoe Bay and Bowen Island, and the Queen of Cumberland on the Swartz Bay and southern Gulf Islands route by about half-an-hour.

B.C. Ferries had warned of very heavy traffic on some of its popular routes Monday, particularly Tsawwassen to Swartz Bay and the Horseshoe Bay to Langdale route, which had two-sailing waits by Monday evening.

B.C. Ferries also added an extra 8 p.m. sailing on the Swartz Bay to Tsawwassen route to deal with the volume.