CapitalSeven
Senior Member
Mail a copy to Doug Ford. This is a week for 1950s solutions to 21st century problems. Paving miles of protected wetlands would certainly appeal to him. Ducks suck, so noisy.
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Canadian Highway Fantasy Thread
- Thread starter Streety McCarface
- Start date
micheal_can
Senior Member
When Ford announced his plan to tunnel, over a decade ago, I had a similar idea,but cheaper - deck the highway. Have it 3+ lanes a side Start it out in Milton and end it out towards Oshawa. Only have exits for other 400 series highways.
And then I learned that you cannot move enough people with highways. You need something else.
And then I learned that you cannot move enough people with highways. You need something else.
Transportfan
Senior Member
Ontario could easily change 17 to 1 (signed with a TCH shield exclusively) as it has no Highway 1 anyway.
ARG1
Senior Member
Historically, the reason why Ontario doesn't have a Highway 1 was because tons of municipalities petitioned to be served by Highway 1, so they decided on a compromise solution in that nobody would be served by Highway 1.
And it honestly makes sense, why should ONTARIO Highway 1's only major city served be Ottawa, and not the corridor of large and important cities served by the 401.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Why does it matter? These days highway numbers are as irrelevant as street names.
Transportfan
Senior Member
But the TCH is national, so this should have been disregarded.
ARG1
Senior Member
The TCH is not national. A lot of Canadians have this weird idea that the TCH is somehow like Canada's equivalent to the US Interstate Highway system when it really isn't. It's only really an antiquated route designation that's meant to symbolize the main route across the continent (and even then it fails at that when it follows weird off the cuff routes that have faster alternatives such as BC Highway 5). The TCH doesn't have any form of unified design standards (highways are exclusively built to local design standards), and yes things like designation are a provincial matter.
There is no such thing really as "Trans Canada Highway 1" or "Trans Canada Highway 16". In actuality if you're driving from say Saskatoon to Edmonton, or Calgary to Vancouver, you're actually driving on SK-16/AB-16, and AB-1/BC-1 respectively. The only reason they have matching shields and numbers is because the governments of the provinces back in the day came together and jointly agreed to have them match. If the government of Alberta wanted to they can go in and renumber Highway 1 to Highway 69 tomorrow, and the Feds wouldn't be able to do anything about it.
That's why in contrast to the Western Provinces, the eastern provinces don't follow the same rules with ON and Quebec outright not using the shield design (saving it as just a marker under the route identifier), and all provinces other than NL use numbers other than 1 that better match how their local highway numbering system works.
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Transportfan
Senior Member
I know that, but being national (in spirit), Ontario could've just made it Hwy. 1 using only the TCH shield to make "TCH-1" as long as possible, making a point of making it logically exempt from provincial squabbling.
Also, US interstates are owned and maintained by the states, making them not "national" either, but they still have coherent numbering.
ARG1
Senior Member
Consider what the arguments would've looked like back then. Yes Hwy 1 for 17 makes sense considering its the TCH, however for Ontario as whole, it would've made more sense to number for instance Highway 2 as "Highway 1" since that goes through areas where the vast majority of the province lives. Its the same reason why New Brunswick numbered the TCH Highway 2, and named the route that went through (at the time) the more populated part of the province as Highway 1. Yes Highway 17 is the TCH, but it travels through mostly unpopulated canadian shield, especially after Ottawa/Renfrew it basically serves no one, in contrast to say Highway 2/401.
micheal_can
Senior Member
Interstates are partly funded federally. If the feds did that here, sure, change the sign.
ARG1
Senior Member
They do here as well. Feds provide subsidies to roadways as part of the National Highway System, where roads are provided funding based off criteria such as traffic, as well as importance to national and regional mobility. However this applies to all roads equally, with no priority to things like the TCH.
micheal_can
Senior Member
That is how it is different here, and harder to make a case for any changes.
MuzikMachine
New Member
I would agree that the Feds have little influence, but it seems the some provinces seem to have more more importance on the TCH than others.
In the west, both TCH 1 and TCH 16 had renumbering in some provinces to obtain the constant numbers. For TCH 1, in the 1940s AB switched its '1' & '2' designations, SK switched its '1' & '4' designations, and BC renumbered a section BC 1 north of Nanaimo to BC 19. For TCH 16, in c. 1979 MB renumbered MB 4, and Saskatchewan renumbered sections of SK 5 (west of Saskatoon), SK 14 (east of Saskatoon), as well as its original SK 16 (east of Regina to the MB border) which is now SK 48. Yellowhead 16 wasn't signed TCH 16 until c. 1990. There were politics in play in BC with the Coquhalla Hwy not being designated as TCH 1, as well as the BC 97 alphabet soup.
I think Ontario may have had a different emphasis on the Trans-Canada Highway if branches were adopted at the beginning and the old Interprovincial Highway 2 was included. Arguably the Hwy 2 designation from Windsor to Halifax was Canada's original TCH, at least in terms of its population core; also a prime example of Ontario aligning its numbering with other provinces on a major interprovincial route. With some current replacement freeways even referencing the old Hwy 2 (A-20, NS 102), even if it's unintentionally, maybe Hwy 401 should have been designated as Hwy 402.
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micheal_can
Senior Member
Now that I think of it, Highway 11 from Thunder Bay to Toronto was the first east west highway completed in the province in that area. So, maybe it is a highway 1 without telling people it is highway 1.
I never put that together, but that is true about the xx2 numbering,I think Ontario may have had a different emphasis on the Trans-Canada Highway if branches were adopted at the beginning and the old Interprovincial Highway 2 was included. Arguably the Hwy 2 designation from Windsor to Halifax was Canada's original TCH, at least in terms of its population core; also a prime example of Ontario aligning its numbering with other provinces on a major interprovincial route. With some current replacement freeways even referencing the old Hwy 2 (A-20, NS 102), even if it's unintentionally, maybe Hwy 401 should have been designated as Hwy 402.