Yesterday after dropping my friends off at Pearson at 6:15 am, I decided to take a spontaneous trip to check out Gravenhurst (Golf Lake, really), South River (Exit 289, really), North Bay, Sturgeon Falls and Sudbury. I went up by 11, across by 17 then back down by 69.
By now, the animal fencing has been put up, and the construction zone speed limit back up to 90 km/h. When I was crossing French River, I made sure to take a look at the “new bridge”. Holy smokes, the structure’s massive and it looks beautiful.
Sadly, though, it seems that the 4-lane interchange at Highway 522 will be separate from the rest of the 4-lane sections. It’s like 17 from Denlou to 69: 4-lane for quite a bit, back to 2, then 4-lane at interchange with a major highway, then back to 2.
Speaking of the 17, the drive from North Bay to Sudbury/Nipissing boundary was not fun. There were so many cars in both directions (especially eastbound) that it wasn’t even funny. On the bright side, the part of 17 having Veuve River on one side and rocks on the other is seeing some serious rock blasting to widen or straighten to highway, which is nice.
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