Highways in Canada

[milomilo]

It's only really the city roads that have names that are used regularly. Highway 2 is sometimes the QEII, but that's it really . Maybe the Alaska Highway and Crowsnest Highway.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by milomilo

It's only really the city roads that have names that are used regularly. Highway 2 is sometimes the QEII, but that's it really . Maybe the Alaska Highway and Crowsnest Highway.

And the famous (or should I say infamous) Coke/Coqui/Coquihalla!

[craner]

Oh ya, highways within the cities, I see what you mean.
Yes I do that but really wish they wouldn't name them at all.

[SignalHillHiker]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Just a suggestion:
In western Canada and in Québec, people refer to the highways by their actual names instead of their numbers. In order to avoid further confusion, should we compile a glossary for each of the 5 provinces?

For example for Québec:
A5 - Gatineau Freeway/de la Gatineau
A10 - (in/dans Montreal) Bonaventure & (outside/hors de Montréal) Eastern Townships/des cantons de l’est

Same on this end.

All of our highways have route numbers, sometimes with a letter as well, but most people couldn't even tell you what they are.

We say T-C-H. Oddly, no one ever says T-L-H but instead fully says Trans Labrador Highway.

The rest all have names - Pitts Memorial Drive (Route 2), Team Gushue Highway (Route 3A), etc. I had to look up those route numbers:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Newfoundland_and_Labrador_highways

I'm sure on the West Coast and in Labrador there are areas where locals use route numbers. They tend to be closer to whatever the norm is in Central Canada in these sorts of things.

[hipster duck]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Just a suggestion:
In western Canada and in Québec, people refer to the highways by their actual names instead of their numbers. In order to avoid further confusion, should we compile a glossary for each of the 5 provinces?

For example for Québec:
A5 - Gatineau Freeway/de la Gatineau
A10 - (in/dans Montreal) Bonaventure & (outside/hors de Montréal) Eastern Townships/des cantons de l’est

The 401 is also called the McDonald-Cartier Freeway, but nobody calls it that. There used to be highway shields along its route, but I don't think I've seen one in years, at least not within the GTA:



It's also called the Highway of Heroes between the exit for the Trenton Airbase and the DVP (en route to the Ontario Coroner's Office downtown), but nobody calls it that either.

[Loco101]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Just a suggestion:
In western Canada and in Québec, people refer to the highways by their actual names instead of their numbers. In order to avoid further confusion, should we compile a glossary for each of the 5 provinces?

For example for Québec:
A5 - Gatineau Freeway/de la Gatineau
A10 - (in/dans Montreal) Bonaventure & (outside/hors de Montréal) Eastern Townships/des cantons de l’est

There a few in Ontario that where people refer to them by name instead of the number. Often portions of certain highways. The ones I can think of:

The Queensway (Hwy 417 in Ottawa) And I think it originally included what it now Ottawa Road 174 before "the split" was built which is where Hwy 417 splits off and heads towards Montreal.


Thunder Bay Expressway - Hwys 11 and 17 as and the Southern part is Hwy 61

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Loco101

There are some in Ontario that where people refer to them by name instead of the number. Often portions of certain highways. The ones I can think of:

The Queensway (Hwy 417 in Ottawa) And I think it originally included what it now Ottawa Road 174 before "the split" was built which is where Hwy 417 splits off and heads towards Montreal.

The Linc (Lincoln Alexander Parkway) which is part of Hwy 6 in Hamilton

Thunder Bay Expressway - Hwys 11 and 17 as and the Southern part is Hwy 61

Linc’s actually not part of the 6. 6 is concurrent with 403 through Hamilton and then gets its own Super 2. If anything Linc and Red Hill Valley are closer to the downloaded 8.

But T Bay Expressway yes! And probably also (Sudbury) NW <144>, SW and SE <17> Bypass, and North Bay Bypass? Funny enough, only Sudbury Bypass is largely outside built-up area.

Ps: Technically counting bypasses is cheating.
I mean, some Ontario freeways do have names (like Alexander Graham Bell Parkway for 403, Veterans Memorial Freeway for 416, General Brock Parkway for 405) but they aren’t well known. It makes 417 an exception. Obviously, a notable irony is QEW which is only internally known as 451.

[ssiguy]

I`ve always wondered how the 400 series in Ontario got into it`s pronunciation. For example why do we pronounce the 401 as four-oh-one instead of just the number four hundred and one? I remember being asked by tourist how to get to the 404 and they asked by saying four hundred and four and I had to think about it for a second as it never occurred to me people outside Canada would pronounce it that way but then again how else would we think they would pronounce it?

[Dengler Avenue]

Those with a 0 in between: four-o-(insert the number)
Otherwise, four-(how you would normally pronounce a 2-digit number).
Examples:
403 = four-o-three
420 = four-twenty (don’t laugh!)

It’s the same for highways with 3-digits:
101 = one-o-one
144 = one-forty-four

[wave46]

Originally Posted by ssiguy

I`ve always wondered how the 400 series in Ontario got into it`s pronunciation. For example why do we pronounce the 401 as four-oh-one instead of just the number four hundred and one? I remember being asked by tourist how to get to the 404 and they asked by saying four hundred and four and I had to think about it for a second as it never occurred to me people outside Canada would pronounce it that way but then again how else would we think they would pronounce it?

The same reason people in Los Angeles refer to freeways there as the one-oh-one or four-oh-five or whatever.

It's a quirk of the spoken English language by native English speakers. We tend to break large numbers into two (or three)-digit phrases - for instance the year 2012 would be 'twenty-twelve' as opposed to two thousand and twelve.

[Dengler Avenue]

Then, in French, you have to say the numbers properly,
I.e. 85 = quatre-vingt cinq, 175 = cent soixante-quinze, 291 = deux cent quatre vingt onze, 335 = trois cent trente cinq, 440 = quatre cent quarante, 573 = cinq cent soixante treize, 640 = six cent quarante...

I just noticed Quebec has no spur/loop autoroute that starts with an 8.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Then, in French, you have to say the numbers properly,
I.e. 85 = quatre-vingt cinq, 175 = cent soixante-quinze, 291 = deux cent quatre vingt onze, 335 = trois cent trente cinq, 440 = quatre cent quarante, 573 = cinq cent soixante treize, 640 = six cent quarante...

I just noticed Quebec has no spur/loop autoroute that starts with an 8.

It's a mixed bag in French.

Route 225 will be deux-cent-vingt-cinq.

But Autoroute 440 will be quatre-quarante. 540 is cinq-quarante. 640 = six-quarante.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Just a suggestion:
In western Canada and in Québec, people refer to the highways by their actual names instead of their numbers. In order to avoid further confusion, should we compile a glossary for each of the 5 provinces?

For example for Québec:
A5 - Gatineau Freeway/de la Gatineau
A10 - (in/dans Montreal) Bonaventure & (outside/hors de Montréal) Eastern Townships/des cantons de l’est

Nobody refers to the A-5 as Autoroute de la Gatineau or the A-50 as Autoroute de l'Outaouais. A lot of people are probably not familiar with those names.

Some autoroutes that have "name" recognition that is often used in common speech here in Quebec are:

A-10 - Autoroute des Cantons de l'Est or de l'Estrie

A-15 - Autoroute des Laurentides

A-15 Autoroute Décarie

A-40 on the island of Montreal - Transcanadienne and Métropolitaine

All of them do have names, but most are just referred to by their numbers.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Loco101

There a few in Ontario that where people refer to them by name instead of the number. Often portions of certain highways. The ones I can think of:

The Queensway (Hwy 417 in Ottawa) And I think it originally included what it now Ottawa Road 174 before "the split" was built which is where Hwy 417 splits off and heads towards Montreal.

Yes when people refer to the Queensway is the 417 from Kanata (maybe Stittsville now) to just east of St Laurent, and then the 174 from that point to Orleans.

Way back when there was no eastbound 417 splitting off east of St Laurent towards Montreal.

So it was logical to call the only east-west route by a single name, and at least initially it all had the same highway number: 17.

[swimmer_spe]

In Ontario, we sometimes give nicknames to our highways.

Who here does not know what The Parking Lot is?

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

In Ontario, we sometimes give nicknames to our highways.

Who here does not know what The Parking Lot is?

Which one though? McDonald-Cartier, Gardiner or Don Valley?

[The Chemist]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Just a suggestion:
In western Canada and in Québec, people refer to the highways by their actual names instead of their numbers. In order to avoid further confusion, should we compile a glossary for each of the 5 provinces?

For example for Québec:
A5 - Gatineau Freeway/de la Gatineau
A10 - (in/dans Montreal) Bonaventure & (outside/hors de Montréal) Eastern Townships/des cantons de l’est

Yeah, it's interesting how some people use names rather than numbers to talk about highways. I had a discussion with a guy I was working with a couple of weeks ago about highway numbering here in China, and he told me that a lot of people here still use names to refer to expressways rather than numbers, because the unified national expressway numbering system in China only came into existence a few years ago, and prior to that there were only names.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

Which one though? McDonald-Cartier, Gardiner or Don Valley?

There is only one that truly gets the moniker of "The Parking Lot"

[sonysnob]

Likewise, There’s only one “Parkway” as well.

[ssiguy]

I never say QEW but rather `the Queen E`.