Highways in Canada

[FFX-ME]

The Nova Scotia highway system puts the rest of the country to shame, in part because of the low population of the province, particularly Ontario.

[Innsertnamehere]

Highways in the Maritimes are particularly cheap, as they don't have land acquisition costs like in Southern Ontario. These highways, nearly 75km of which, cost $390 million. Ontario is about to spend far more than that to widen 18km of the 401.

The demands on the networks are different.

Ontario does much more complex projects. Even their simple projects, like the 400 extension, costs twice as much per km as the terrain and other situational challenges raise the cost.

MTO has recently been focusing its capital expansion program on highway widenings, as well. There are a ton of highway widenings in the GTHA and in Ottawa that are alleviating built up congestion. Those conditions don't exist in the Maritimes due to low population densities.

[q12]

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Highways in the Maritimes are particularly cheap, as they don't have land acquisition costs like in Southern Ontario.

A large percentage of Nova Scotia's 100-series highways are controlled access with proper grade separated interchanges even where they are not twinned (Highway 101, 103, 104 and 107). They were built as "Super two highways" years ago for eventual conversion to freeway/divided highway if required for safety due to traffic volumes.

This cuts down on the cost when twinning since the twinned portion of the highway can be constructed directly next to the existing highway. This results in very little land acquisition. Also the grade separated interchange structures are already in place and only need to be modified/expanded.

Here is what the province wants to twin if they get the money:

Nova Scotia highway tolls study should come out in spring

Tolls would be used to help pay for twinning of up to eight sections of 100-series highways
The Canadian Press Posted: Feb 12, 2016 8:24 AM AT Last Updated: Feb 12, 2016 8:25 AM AT



Nova Scotia's transportation minister says a feasibility study on new toll roads should be ready this spring.

Geoff MacLellan says public opinion surveys suggest residents aren't necessarily against the idea.

However, MacLellan says the polls also suggest the public wants to see details of the government's plan before deciding.

The tolls would be used to help pay for the twinning of up to eight sections of 100-series highways:

Highway 101 - Three Mile Plains to Falmouth - 9.5 km
Highway 101 - Hortonville to Coldbrook - 24.7 km
Highway 103 - Exit 5 at Tantallon to Exit 12 Bridgewater - 71 km
Highway 104 - Sutherlands River to Antigonish - 37.8 km
Highway 104 - Taylors Road to Aulds Cove - 38.4 km
Highway 104 - Port Hastings to Port Hawkesbury - 6.75 km
Highway 104 - St. Peter's to Sydney - 80 km
Highway 107 - Porters Lake to Duke Street, Bedford - 33 km
​If the province went ahead with all eight projects, it would mean twinning a total of 301.2 kilometres of highways.

The Liberal government has pledged to hold 16 rounds of public hearings on the matter.

Currently, the Cobequid Pass on Highway 104 is the only toll road in the province. The 45-kilometre stretch of road took 20 months to build at a cost of $96 million. Most motorists now pay a $4 toll to use it. Trucks can pay up to $24, depending on the size of the vehicle.

Read here:http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/nova-scotia-highway-toll-study-1.3445311

[FFX-ME]

I was mostly referring to northern Ontario where the longest stretch of the trans-Canada highways aren't even super-2s.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

I was mostly referring to northern Ontario where the longest stretch of the trans-Canada highways aren't even super-2s.

Admittedly there we are talking about building corridors from scratch. Probably the most comparable example would have been NB-2 west of Fredericton, which runs through somewhat similar terrain.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

I was mostly referring to northern Ontario where the longest stretch of the trans-Canada highways aren't even super-2s.

This also is partly due to the fact that Northern Ontario is mainly neglected by the south.

Did you know part of Highway 17 was not fully completed till the 60s?

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

This also is partly due to the fact that Northern Ontario is mainly neglected by the south.

Did you know part of Highway 17 was not fully completed till the 60s?

You mean the mountainous part that still only takes 1,800-2,500 vehicles per day?

[FFX-ME]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

You mean the mountainous part that still only takes 1,800-2,500 vehicles per day?

More people would take it if it was a super 2. The lower speed limit adds hours to a trip and so most people go through the US. We be nice to have good national infrastructure...the provinces have too much power.

[sonysnob]

Originally Posted by FFX-ME

More people would take it if it was a super 2. The lower speed limit adds hours to a trip and so most people go through the US. We be nice to have good national infrastructure...the provinces have too much power.

That's an absolutely ridiculous presumption.

Any improvements to Highway 17 along the north shore of Lake Superior would have no impact to travel along the corridor. This section of Highway 17 already features frequent passing lanes (with more added every few years), and goes through very few communities.

The best bang for the buck to speed up travel through northern Ontario would be for the province to assume and pave the Sultan Road. The Sultan Road cuts considerable distance of the trip between Wawa and Sudbury.

[sonysnob]

^ Additionally, the commitments that Nova Scotia made is only twinning approximately 78 km, which is actually less than the approximately 85km of Hwy 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury that remains to be twinned. Twinning is currently underway to close that gap.

And that ignores the 110km of twinning that is currently underway and planned between Thunder Bay in Nipigon, and the 50km of twinning that the province hopes to start soon along Highway 17 between Manitoba and Kenora.

So... Nova Scotia's proposed initiatives are actually pretty paltry considering the work that is currently ongoing in northern Ontario...

[sonysnob]

... and considering the timing of the announcement (30 days from an election)... it seems entirely plausible that the Nova Scotia government will not be able to actually deliver on this commitment... 7 years is a long time from now, and it will be easy, say three of four years from now to come up with a reason why the project needed to be delayed.

Y'know, because governments don't always deliver on all of their election promises.

[q12]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

So... Nova Scotia's proposed initiatives are actually pretty paltry considering the work that is currently ongoing in northern Ontario...

To be fair to Ontario, Nova Scotia's land area at 55,284 km2 is about the same as Southwestern Ontario and the Golden Horseshoe combined. From Halifax I can drive to every point of the province's coastline (including Cape Breton Island) in 3-5 hours max.

Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere

Those conditions don't exist in the Maritimes due to low population densities.

Nova Scotia is the second most-densely populated province in Canada with 17.4 inhabitants per square kilometre.

[vid]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

^ Additionally, the commitments that Nova Scotia made is only twinning approximately 78 km, which is actually less than the approximately 85km of Hwy 69 between Parry Sound and Sudbury that remains to be twinned. Twinning is currently underway to close that gap.

And that ignores the 110km of twinning that is currently underway and planned between Thunder Bay in Nipigon, and the 50km of twinning that the province hopes to start soon along Highway 17 between Manitoba and Kenora.

So... Nova Scotia's proposed initiatives are actually pretty paltry considering the work that is currently ongoing in northern Ontario...

Throw in the freeway conversion through Thunder Bay (in the planning stages with an estimated start of 2019 should the Liberals be re-elected) and the completion of the 11/17 twinning from Twin Cities to Shabaqua (Possibly late 2020s, so a slightly longer time frame than the Nova Scotia projects) and Thunder Bay's CMA alone has more freeway twinning projects in the works than all of Nova Scotia.

[someone123]

As far as I can tell, that press release was basically an election-driven announcement of some potential highway work in Nova Scotia. It is not a comprehensive list of all the work that has gone on lately or is planned for the next 7 years.

NS has an active highway project page: https://novascotia.ca/tran/highways/constructionprojects.asp. That's stuff that's more or less under construction. There are other projects in the planning stages that aren't on that list or in the press release.

The generalizations about Nova Scotia having less population density than Ontario or whatever else are not useful at all (and a lot of them aren't even correct). Like just about every other province, NS has a bunch of different types of highways and highway projects. Some areas have harder or easier terrain to work with, some areas have cheaper or more valuable land, there are projects in urban areas, small towns, and isolated empty areas, etc.

[speedog]

TIL what a 'super 2 highway' is (had to look it up on Google), been driving on versions of these in British Columbia for years, didn't even know that they had a special name.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

That's an absolutely ridiculous presumption.

Any improvements to Highway 17 along the north shore of Lake Superior would have no impact to travel along the corridor. This section of Highway 17 already features frequent passing lanes (with more added every few years), and goes through very few communities.

The best bang for the buck to speed up travel through northern Ontario would be for the province to assume and pave the Sultan Road. The Sultan Road cuts considerable distance of the trip between Wawa and Sudbury.

I like your idea for the Sultan Road.

[Innsertnamehere]

Originally Posted by q12

Nova Scotia is the second most-densely populated province in Canada with 17.4 inhabitants per square kilometre.

Ontario conveniently has vast tracts of uninhabitable swamp taking up the majority of the province's landmass.

What I meant with the comment more so is that Nova Scotia and New Brunswick have masses of federally / provincially owned crown land along the major highway corridors that have 0 acquisition cost. Any time you want to build a new highway in southern ontario you have to buy up tracts of privately held farmland, housing, etc. This can cost literally hundreds of millions of dollars, especially surrounding growth areas (i.e. where the highways are needed), where the farmland is seen as having strong development potential.

The lower levels of agricultural and occupation means that you can get away with fewer interchanges and bridge structures as well. the 22km Highway 103 project would pass only 3 bridge structures for example, while 22km on a portion of the Highway 69 twinning passes 7. The northernmost 22km of the 417 passes by 10, and the 22km of the 401 through toronto probably passes through over 50 including several complex high capacity freeway-freeway interchanges.

Northern Ontario is similar in the respect of readily available crown land, but is typically more rugged in terrain.

And yes, Northern Ontario has around 200km of highway with funding commitments right now, more than the Maritimes. The maritimes however did a very large buildout in the 1990's and 2000's at a rate far above that of Northern Ontario.

[eternallyme]

Originally Posted by sonysnob

You mean the mountainous part that still only takes 1,800-2,500 vehicles per day?

That part would be the most difficult to do anything with. It's the least important section in terms of traffic volumes, yet also the most expensive (by far) and would, by kilometre, be the most expensive highway project ever undertaken in a rural area of Ontario.

I know many trucks prefer 11, but the problem is that 17 from Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay has much higher traffic volumes and generally more forgiving terrain and will eventually need to be upgraded regardless (some sections are already done or in planning), leaving out the Lake Superior orphan. 11 has a much longer section of absolutely nothing (I would guess that over half the vehicles from Hearst to Geraldton are commercial vehicles).

[wave46]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

That part would be the most difficult to do anything with. It's the least important section in terms of traffic volumes, yet also the most expensive (by far) and would, by kilometre, be the most expensive highway project ever undertaken in a rural area of Ontario.

I know many trucks prefer 11, but the problem is that 17 from Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay has much higher traffic volumes and will eventually need to be upgraded regardless (some sections are already done or in planning), leaving out the Lake Superior orphan. 11 has a much longer section of absolutely nothing (I would guess that over half the vehicles from Hearst to Geraldton are commercial vehicles).

If there was one route through northern Ontario, I'd be more supportive of serious upgrades. Traffic is split though and it becomes a question of allocation of resources.

Personally, I'd recommend working on bypassing the small towns along the Sault-North Bay corridor improving the alignment on that stretch. It offers the best value for money and benefits the most people.

The rural sections are least deserving of improvements, with the exception of 17 from Thunder Bay-Manitoba, as it handles all cross-country traffic.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by eternallyme

That part would be the most difficult to do anything with. It's the least important section in terms of traffic volumes, yet also the most expensive (by far) and would, by kilometre, be the most expensive highway project ever undertaken in a rural area of Ontario.

I know many trucks prefer 11, but the problem is that 17 from Sault Ste. Marie to North Bay has much higher traffic volumes and generally more forgiving terrain and will eventually need to be upgraded regardless (some sections are already done or in planning), leaving out the Lake Superior orphan. 11 has a much longer section of absolutely nothing (I would guess that over half the vehicles from Hearst to Geraldton are commercial vehicles).

Highway 17 from the international bridge in the Soo to highway 417 should be 4 lanes. Highway 11 between North Bay and Nipigon should also be 4 lanes. 17 between the Soo and Nipigon? Leave it.