Quote:
Originally Posted by MonctonRad
And, what explains the expansive expressway network in NB and NS (aside from federal largesse)?
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I copied some of my response in a MB Highway thread regarding this exact statement.
Population density and flood protection infrastructure are big reasons Manitoba lags behind other provinces.
Population Density
MB Q3 2023 estimate: 1 454 902 residents; land area 553 556 km^2
NB Q3 2023 estimate: 834 691 residents; land area 71 450 km^2
So just at that, Manitoba has ~1.75x the population, but 7.75 times the land to service. I recognize that the north doesn't have as much infrastructure but there still has to be some service out there. To support this, here's an older stat on how many kms of public roads each province had in 2003. MB had almost 87 000 km and NB 31 500 km, so ~2.76 times as many kms of roadway per citizen to maintain and snow clear.
https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/...tbl001-eng.htm
Flood infrastructure
Flood related infrastructure that MB has had to deal with is a major reason why Saskatchewan, with a population density in the same ballpark, has much greater highway infrastructure.
Just looking at the Red River floodway, which cost 63 million at completion in 1968 (526 million in today's dollars), and its expansion which cost 627 million at full completion in 2014 (790 million today).
The province paid 40% of the original dig and 50% of the expansion, so that is about 605 million in today's dollars that was spent on one piece of the flood protection puzzle in the province. There have also been smaller but not insignificant projects in that time.
The original floodway cost was >90% of the province's annual revenues at the time, and it happened in the mid-60s, and at a critical time when the rest of the continent started rolling out the red carpet for the personal car and building modern highways and freeways.