Canadian Highway Fantasy Thread

[micheal_can]

I love your ideas for connecting Ontario. bravo. I wish the government would focus on these instead of the 413 or enlarging existing highways to 24 lanes. Keep up the excellent work.

They are doing that because they think that will solve all of the province's transportation problems.

 

[MuzikMachine]

[Edit] The purpose of a national highway system is to connect cities, not avoid them. I'd get rid of the GB\CO routes too, but I'd replace it with a route through Toronto by via 400/401.

Better yet, why not implement a general national highway system and scrap the strictly transcontinental "Trans-Canada" Highway? That would make more sense. The TCH as-is has a lot of branches that piggyback over middle-of-nowhere roads that in themselves go nowhere, while important routes are not part of it.

I came across these posts and joined the group to reply. IMO the Trans-Canada Highway system should see some to better serve connecting to cities, and agree with the above statement. While I wouldn't go so far as to turn it into outright system, like the previous National Highway System posts, the should be some basic requirements, such as:

• Connecting to a major metropolitan area
• Connecting to a capital city
• Minimum 2 provincial boundary crossings - this can be in place if multiple TCH segments are combined.
• 4 lane, divided standard except in northern or mountainous/Canadian Shield areas; though there should be an ultimate goal to have a 4-lane divided highway standard on the mainline through Interior BC and Northern Ontario.
• Freeway standard through urban areas.

Yeah. There's no need for the TCH to come anywhere near Toronto. In fact, I'd junk the Georgian Bay/Central Ontario route from Sudbury to Ottawa via Highways 69/400, 12, and 7. It's a strange anachronism that is barely signed as it is. Only Highway 17/417 should be signed in Southern Ontario. Halifax does just fine being left off the TCH as well.

In Northern Ontario, having two routes -- Highway 17 and Highway 11 -- as the TCH makes more sense. Highway 11 is the only alternative road to 17 in many sections, and most truckers prefer the longer Highway 11 route through Cochrane and Hearst than 17 through the Soo because it's a flatter, straighter, drier road. (And Highway 11 was competed before Highway 17 was.)

If need be create a secondary branch to Toronto down 69/400 to the 401 then over to Montreal again.

The Georgian Bay/Central Ontario route is an example of a federal-provincial compromise that ended up serving nobody. When the original Trans-Canada Highway was designated, it is envisioned as a single, linear road that went from the coast-to-coast. According to A Road For Canada, the Ontario provincial government wanted the TCH alignment to pass through its populated areas in the south, while the federal government wanted a more northern, direct route to Western Canada. What was decided upon was a route in the middle via Hwy 7 - which ultimately accomplished neither aim effectively. Older maps show ON 17 between Ottawa and Sudbury as not being a part of the TCH, same with ON 11, but they were ultimately added.

Considering the Georgian Bay/Central Ontario route is "close, but not close enough" to Toronto, it would make sense to reroute it to follow Hwys 69/400 and 401 from Sudbury to Montreal. Toronto is Canada's largest city, the capital of Canada's most populated province, and has its economic and financial importance, so it seems reasonable to have a spur route passing through. As for the multiple provincial crossings provision, if you combined the "Toronto Spur Route" to the TCH mainline, 400/69 & 17 link Toronto to Western Canada, while 401 & A20/85 link Toronto with Quebec and Atlantic Canada.

If you wanted to maintain a nod to history, create a brown TCH shield and designate the bypassed sections of ON 7 & 12 as the Trans-Canada Highway Historical Route. Other potential routes that could be retired could be the Laurentian Route (A-15, R-117, ON-66) and ON 11/71 between Thunder Bay and Kenora. Out in British Columbia, reroute TCH 1 to the Coquihalla Hwy between Kamloops and Hope, while the TCH Historical Route could be assigned to Fraser Canyon section along with a different number.

I wrote at length about the TCH numbering system (or lack of) elsewhere.

The TCH was a 1950s project to complete a high-quality paved route across all ten provinces, with federal funding allocated to completing these links.

In Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces, there was already a complete, paved highway. In fact, there was an interprovincial highway with the same number all the way from Windsor, Ontario to Halifax, Nova Scotia – Highway 2. Ontario had just completed a paved highway link to Manitoba as well, but it required going via North Bay and Cochrane on Highway 11 as Highway 17 wasn’t completed yet.

Sections of Highway 1 already existed in BC and the Prairies and were slowly coming together as a single highway. So you had two distinct highway numbers for a through eastern route and a distinct western route, with the enormity of Northern Ontario separating them.

Since the eastern provinces had their highways completed – with Ontario and Quebec focused on building new freeways and Autoroutes – TCH money went towards building new bypasses and new, more direct routes. In New Brunswick, for example, Highway 2 was rerouted away from Saint John to avoid a much more winding alignment. In Ontario, Highway 17 along Lake Superior and Highway 69 along Georgian Bay were completed, with new bypasses built along the TCH branches in places like North Bay, Pembroke, Lindsay, Peterborough, Orillia, Hawkesbury, etc, and the Queensway built through Ottawa.

In the 1960s-1970s, of course, Québec completely renumbered its highways, eliminating Highway 2 there, and in Nova Scotia, a new series of highways mostly superseded its older routes, though those still exist. Mike Harris decimated the highway network here.

Calling for a standardization and nation-wide renumbering system ignores the fact that the federal government has no direct role in highways, with the TCH project being the one major intervention.

But, I wouldn’t mind Ontario using TCH shields on the portions of highways with that designation. Québec would never.

Western Canada did have numbered highways, but they seemed more willing to complete renumbering projects than the eastern provinces. In the 1940s Alberta switched their 1 & 2 designations while Saskatchewan switched their 1 & 4 designations to allow for Hwy 1 to be consistent through all four provinces. More recently the Yellowhead Highway was renumbered in the late 1970s with Saskatchewan renumbering portions of SK 5 & 14 (now all TCH 16), along with the former 16 (now SK 48 near Regina); while Manitoba renumbered MB 4. It would have been nice if the TCH 1 designation continued east, but that wasn't the case.

 

[Transportfan]

In the 1940s Alberta switched their 1 & 2 designations while Saskatchewan switched their 1 & 4 designations to allow for Hwy 1 to be consistent through all four provinces. More recently the Yellowhead Highway was renumbered in the late 1970s with Saskatchewan renumbering portions of SK 5 & 14 (now all TCH 16), along with the former 16 (now SK 48 near Regina); while Manitoba renumbered MB 4. It would have been nice if the TCH 1 designation continued east, but that wasn't the case.

Ontario doesn't even have an excuse not to have the mainline as Hwy. 1 as it never had a Hwy. 1 anyway. The 417 could be renumbered to 1 as an anomaly in the 400-series network.

 

[micheal_can]

Ontario doesn't even have an excuse not to have the mainline as Hwy. 1 as it never had a Hwy. 1 anyway. The 417 could be renumbered to 1 as an anomaly in the 400-series network.

Ask it from the perspective of the province.
1) why should it be changed?
2) Who is paying for the signs?

 

[lenaitch]

the mainline

I wonder what the chances are of defining that such that it doesn't piss everybody off.

 

[Transportfan]

I wonder what the chances are of defining that such that it doesn't piss everybody off.

17 and 417. It's pretty obvious.

 

[ARG1]

Ontario doesn't even have an excuse not to have the mainline as Hwy. 1 as it never had a Hwy. 1 anyway. The 417 could be renumbered to 1 as an anomaly in the 400-series network.

I mean the reason why there isn't a Highway 1 is because everyone wanted to be served by Highway 1, so the government took the pragmatic choice of not having one at all.

 

[Transportfan]

The TCH was a national project that should've superseded provincial squabblings.

 

[micheal_can]

17 and 417. It's pretty obvious.

That does not go through the provincial capital and doesn't go through the largest population centres.

 

[micheal_can]

I would designate 11, 17/417 and 401 as TCH highways,. The question is how would you number them?

 

[EnviroTO]

McDonald-Cartier Freeway

Trans Canada Highway

 

[ARG1]

I would designate 11, 17/417 and 401 as TCH highways,. The question is how would you number them?

I don't understand why the alternate routes of the TCH through Ontario even exist. The TCH isn't a network of highways, it's just 1 specific coast to coast highway. Sure Toronto isn't served by it, but neither is Edmonton (Highway 16 is the Yellowhead Highway, not the TCH)

 

[micheal_can]

I don't understand why the alternate routes of the TCH through Ontario even exist. The TCH isn't a network of highways, it's just 1 specific coast to coast highway. Sure Toronto isn't served by it, but neither is Edmonton (Highway 16 is the Yellowhead Highway, not the TCH)

Everywhere else on the prairies, Highway 16 has a TCH designation.

 

[EnviroTO]

Everywhere else on the prairies, Highway 16 has a TCH designation.

Yes, the highway is both TCH 16 (signed as such), and the Yellowhead highway currently (signed as such in BC)

Yellowhead Highway
.

 

[micheal_can]

Yes, the highway is both TCH 16 (signed as such), and the Yellowhead highway currently (signed as such in BC)

View attachment 572460
View attachment 572461Yellowhead Highway
.

What is with the new numbering system and shield that look like they are from Quebec?