Quote:
Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue
IMO...
Regionally speaking, for one, it depends on how tightly connected Abitibi-
Témiskamingue is to the rest of Southern Québec. Then it also depends on how much the government cares about developing Rouyn-Noranda and Val-d'Or. I can totally see these 2 places grow (and sprawl) if an autoroute is built all the way to the provincial boundary.
Also, I would recommend extending A50 through Joliette to meet up with A40 somewhere near Ville de Québec because traffic on Autoroute Métropolitaine is way too heavy, and because people probably don't like to see an excess number of trucks on city highways too.
Ps: To ensure that the twinning effort will be worthwhile, the AADT on the twinned 117 should be at least 3* the AADT on 175. 
Also, even if the economic argument is weak, I can see a somewhat strong political one, both nationally and provincially.
Now that I think about it, Ontario government may actually welcome the news, because twinning the 66-11 corridor is probably a lot easier than doing the same thing with either 11 or 17 alone. The amount of rock that needs to be blasted goes down by quite a bit (although not non-zero). |
Something else that could be done is a new highway from Temiskaming to Rapids-de-Joachims and then down to Sheenboro. This would greatly improve the travel down to Montreal.
...
But,, I am not sure how anything in Quebec does anything good for Northern Ontario's traffic and highways.