If you are travelling out of downtown Vancouver this weekend, you’ll want to make sure you plan your route.
The city is playing host to Canada’s premiere music awards ceremony, and the Junos will be taking over part of the Georgia Viaduct for a red carpet walk.
The elevated roadway will shut down at 9 p.m. Friday, and reopen at 3 a.m. Monday. The Dunsmuir Vidaduct will be unaffected.
The shutdown will leave taxi drivers without one of their main exits from the core on the busiest nights of the week, but drivers say they’re ready.
“Traffic is probably going to be in a gridlock trying to get in and out of downtown,” said Vancouver Taxi Association spokesperson Carolyn Bauer.
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Bauer said taxi companies have been planning ahead, and have been told to treat the weekend as if there was a heavy snowfall.
“The congestion is going be the main concern, there’s going to be a lot of people. I mean there’s so much excitement around the Junos coming in to Vancouver, I mean it’s so classy for us. So the congestion is going be heavy, people are just going to have to be really really patient.”
She said the fleet is also being beefed up for the weekend, with an anticipated 800 cabs on the road.
The road closure has also drawn complaints from some city councillors, who said the city should have given the public more than a one-week warning.
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When the city shut down the viaducts to film superhero blockbuster Deadpool in 2015, commuters were given two weeks notice.
The closure could also serve as a test run for a post-viaducts Vancouver. The city recently approved a final Northeast False Creek community plan — which involves removing the Georgia and Dunsmuir viaducts permanently.
-With files from Sean Boynton