Highways in Canada

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by JHikka

Not surprising given the state of those Autoroutes.


I don't think i've ever experienced this. If I ever pass a car going slowly on a highway it's usually either QC or PEI plates.

I heard the Steel Motorway (Autoroute de l’Acier, A30) from St Bruno towards Sorel-Tracy was built on shaky grounds right from the beginning so now MTQ had to rebuild a huge chunk of it.

[Acajack]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I heard the Steel Motorway (Autoroute de l’Acier, A30) from St Bruno towards Sorel-Tracy was built on shaky grounds right from the beginning so now MTQ had to rebuild a huge chunk of it.

Most autoroutes are OK in terms of pavement conditions now.

[esquire]

At least the autoroutes don't have intersections. Here on the 110 kph sections of 1 or 75, you are likely to come across a farmer in a tractor trundling across all 4 lanes of the highway at 25 kph pulling some kind of farm implement to his other field.

If Manitoba's highways can handle 110, then surely the autoroutes could too.

[MonctonRad]

Originally Posted by JHikka

I don't think i've ever experienced this. If I ever pass a car going slowly on a highway it's usually either QC or PEI plates.

I see it all the time, although my experience may be different than yours. I mostly notice it on the 104 in northern NS, and the sample grouping would thus tend towards Islanders on their way to and from Halifax (usually for the weekend). This cohort seems to be in an awful bloody hurry..........

[Djeffery]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

120 is certainly the de facto limit in NB.

On PEI, the de facto limit on the TCH is 100-105 km/hr.

Watching Island drivers on the expressways here in NB and NS is funny. If you see somebody whizzing down the road at 140-150, passing everyone, more often than not it will be an Islander. It's as if once they get off the Island and see a real highway they suddenly go berserk........

Well, as we used to say "Gotta give it a good run to clean the carbon out of it" lol

[JHikka]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I see it all the time, although my experience may be different than yours. I mostly notice it on the 104 in northern NS, and the sample grouping would thus tend towards Islanders on their way to and from Halifax (usually for the weekend). This cohort seems to be in an awful bloody hurry..........

Any cottage/weekend traffic is going to be in a hurry regardless of where you are (or not, depending on how much traffic there is it may actually slow down the highway, but that's not something i've ever experienced east of Quebec ).

[flipper316]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

120 km/h on select freeways in B.C., 110 km/h across Prairies, temporarily 110 km/h on select sections of 2 freeways in ON, 100 km/h in Québec, then 110 km/h in the Maritimes except PEI and NL

Now that it’s winter though, we can’t go fast anyway.

Doesn't the island highway not count as a freeway ?it's got traffic lights .

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by flipper316

Doesn't the island highway not count as a freeway ?it's got traffic lights .

I thought there was a short section around Parkdale that’s grade-separated. Anyway blame the NDP government that was in power for this mess.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by flipper316

Doesn't the island highway not count as a freeway ?it's got traffic lights .

Depends on who you ask. I would consider it a freeway due to many factors, but also not a freeway solely on the lights. I can be labeled a limited access highway.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by swimmer_spe

Depends on who you ask. I would consider it a freeway due to many factors, but also not a freeway solely on the lights. I can be labeled a limited access highway.

Woah swimmer_spe I didn't know you were a highway this whole time.

=====

Some news from Washington State down south: https://komonews.com/news/local/commuter...sday-morning-under-new-sr99-tunnel-tolls.

WDOT really had the gut to put tolls on existing infrastructure eh? (The tunnel was recently built, but by my book, if tolls weren't effective right from the get-go, it would count as an instance of tolling existing infrastructure.)

[Dengler Avenue]

https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/...land-to-labrador-fixed-link-has-new-legs

Fixed Link between Newfoundland and Labrador. Thoughts?

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/...land-to-labrador-fixed-link-has-new-legs

Fixed Link between Newfoundland and Labrador. Thoughts?

If this feasible from an engineering standpoint which I'm sure it is, then why not?! $2.7 billion isn't that much when you consider the huge economic potential such a link would bring to NL. I say go for it but make sure it's at least four lanes and also has rail so freight can be shipped more easily to the mainland. Since NL has been fucked over so much I say the feds should finance 85% of the cost and NL gets to keep all toll revenue to ensure the bridge and connecting roads are maintained.

[Dengler Avenue]

Originally Posted by Corndogger

If this feasible from an engineering standpoint which I'm sure it is, then why not?! $2.7 billion isn't that much when you consider the huge economic potential such a link would bring to NL. I say go for it but make sure it's at least four lanes and also has rail so freight can be shipped more easily to the mainland. Since NL has been fucked over so much I say the feds should finance 85% of the cost and NL gets to keep all toll revenue to ensure the bridge and connecting roads are maintained.

From what I remember, it’s a rail-only link. Well, we can put cars on rail cars, but the link itself isn’t for cars.

Even if 4 lanes are doable, it’s a bit hard to convince Québec to put 4 lanes of roads through that terrain. Like, how on earth is anyone even gonna build roads from Kagaska to Vieux-Fort...

[milomilo]

is the $2.7B just for the tunnel, or does it include the huge amount of supporting infrastructure to make such a thing worthwhile?

As much as I love rail, this particular railway seems utterly pointless.

[MonctonRad]

The distance across the Strait of Belle Isle is actually just slightly greater than the Abegweit Passage where the Confederation Bridge to PEI was built.

The Northumberland Strait though is a shallow body of water, only about 70 metres at most, and although the strait can freeze over in the wintertime, its all pan ice or ice flows. The Strait of Belle Isle on the other hand can be as deep as about 200 metres, has strong currents and actual icebergs can be a risk. The engineering challenges would be entirely different.

The big issue with a fixed link is that it would be a bridge from nowhere to nowhere.

The distance from St. John's to the strait is about 1000 km! Once on the other side, a trip on a newly constructed highway to Sept-Iles would be about 750 km. To get to Quebec City from Sept Iles is another 650 Km!!!

So, to drive from St. John's to Quebec City via a fixed link would entail a journey of about 2400 km, about half of which would be through complete wilderness. Unless you were really hoofing it, this would be a 2.5-3 day journey.

I'm not against the idea of a fixed link. It would certainly have benefits for the lower north shore of Quebec and the Great Northern Peninsula, but the costs of this endeavour would be much greater than the $2.7 billion mentioned. Highway construction and upgrades as well as development of ancillary needed infrastructure would likely push the cost north of $4 billion. Still though, I am always in favour of projects that contribute to nation building. This is quite definitely an act of nation building.........

[Dengler Avenue]

Are Québec and the feds serious about extending 138 from Kagaska to Vieux-Fort even... Did that area get hit by an asteroid in the past? The terrain looks awful.

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by MonctonRad

I'm not against the idea of a fixed link. It would certainly have benefits for the lower north shore of Quebec and the Great Northern Peninsula, but the costs of this endeavour would be much greater than the $2.7 billion mentioned. Highway construction and upgrades as well as development of ancillary needed infrastructure would likely push the cost north of $4 billion. Still though, I am always in favour of projects that contribute to nation building. This is quite definitely an act of nation building.........

I agree, but there has to be economic justification for such projects. There are probably dozens (or more) projects of similar scale with far better business cases across Canada, and a limited pot of money. Is a tunnel to Newfoundland top of the list? Building any half decent passenger rail west of Ontario would be a good start before we start thinking of marginal business cases.

[Djeffery]

I just typed onto google maps "Quebec City to Point Amour", and it spit back a 32 hour 2200km drive. And that's just to the top of the peninsula, with god knows how many hours ahead of you to wherever you are going on the island. That might be something I would consider as a retirement vacation, but I can't see the economic benefits to trucking companies to go this way. Nor can I see Quebec being interested in having however many trucks rolling up that little 2 lane road that would surely need to be upgraded.

If it's 10 miles across, then the ferry isn't that long so why isn't this already a preferred transportation corridor? Probably because when you do that same google map search, the preferred routing is through Cape Breton, across on the ferry, up north and back across on the ferry to Point Amour. 4 hours shorter, even with the North Sydney ferry crossing. Or probably 8 or 9 hours shorter if you aren't planning to go north of Deer Lake.

But I honestly haven't given it any more thought than the last half hour or so, so there would naturally be pro-bridge arguments I'm not immediately seeing.

[swimmer_spe]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

https://canada.constructconnect.com/dcn/...land-to-labrador-fixed-link-has-new-legs

Fixed Link between Newfoundland and Labrador. Thoughts?

AKA the Channel Tunnel.
Except it is in a very sparsely populated area.

[Corndogger]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

From what I remember, it’s a rail-only link. Well, we can put cars on rail cars, but the link itself isn’t for cars.

Even if 4 lanes are doable, it’s a bit hard to convince Québec to put 4 lanes of roads through that terrain. Like, how on earth is anyone even gonna build roads from Kagaska to Vieux-Fort...

If you look at what Norway is doing with the highway their building around their coastline I'd say anything is possible. A road link connecting Newfoundland to the mainland should be a national priority and that link should have decent roads leading to it.