The Trans-Canada Highway is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the Atlantic Ocean on the east coast. The main route spans 7,476 km (4,645 mi) across the country, one of the longest routes of its type in the world. The highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers, although there are small variations in the markers in some provinces.
The 400-series highways are a network of controlled-access highways in the Canadian province of Ontario, forming a special subset of the provincial highway system. They are analogous to the Interstate Highway System in the United States or the Autoroute system of neighbouring Quebec, and are regulated by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO). The 400-series designations were introduced in 1952, although Ontario had been constructing divided highways for two decades prior. Initially, only Highways 400, 401 and 402 were numbered; other designations followed in the subsequent decades. The network is situated almost entirely in Southern Ontario, although Highway 400 extends into the more remote northern portion of the province.
The Quebec Autoroute System or le système d'autoroute au Québec is a network of freeways within the province of Quebec, Canada, operating under the same principle of controlled access as the Interstate Highway System in the United States and the 400-series highways in neighbouring Ontario. The Autoroutes are the backbone of Quebec's highway system, spanning almost 2,400 km (1,491 mi). The speed limit on the Autoroutes is generally 100 km/h (62 mph) in rural areas and 70–90 km/h (43–56 mph) in urban areas; most roads are made of asphalt concrete.
Numbered highways in Canada are split by province, and a majority are maintained by their province or territory transportation department. All highways in Canada are numbered except for three in the Northwest Territories, one in Alberta, one in Ontario, and one in Quebec. Ontario's 7000 series are not marked with their highway number but have been assigned one by the Ministry of Transportation. A number of highways in all provinces are better known locally by their name rather than their number. Some highways have additional letters added to their number: A is typically an alternate route, B is typically a business route, and other letters are used for bypass (truck) routes, connector routes, scenic routes, and spur routes. The territory of Nunavut has no highways.
The Provincial Highway Network consists of all the roads in Ontario maintained by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), including those designated as part of the King's Highway, secondary highways, and tertiary roads. Components of the system—comprising 16,900 kilometres (10,500 mi) of roads and 2,880 bridges —range in scale from Highway 401, the busiest highway in North America, to unpaved forestry and mining access roads. The longest highway is nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) long, while the shortest is less than a kilometre. Some roads are unsigned highways, lacking signage to indicate their maintenance by the MTO; these may be remnants of highways that are still under provincial control whose designations were decommissioned, roadway segments left over from realignment projects, or proposed highway corridors.
Route 2 is a major provincial highway in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, carrying the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway in the province. The highway connects with Autoroute 85 at the border with Quebec and Highway 104 at the border with Nova Scotia, as well as with traffic from Interstate 95 in the U.S. state of Maine via the short Route 95 connector. A core route in the National Highway System, Route 2 is a four-lane freeway in its entirety, and directly serves the cities of Edmundston, Fredericton, and Moncton.
The road hierarchy categorizes roads according to their functions and capacities. While sources differ on the exact nomenclature, the basic hierarchy comprises freeways, arterials, collectors, and local roads. Generally, the functional hierarchy can more or less correspond to the hierarchy of roads by their owner or administrator.
A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway, expressway, and partial controlled-access highway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway, including limited or no access to adjacent property, some degree of separation of opposing traffic flow, use of grade separated interchanges to some extent, prohibition of slow modes of transport, such as bicycles, (draught) horses, or self-propelled agricultural machines; and very few or no intersecting cross-streets or level crossings. The degree of isolation from local traffic allowed varies between countries and regions. The precise definition of these terms varies by jurisdiction.
Route 185 is part of the Trans-Canada Highway. It travels from Saint-Antonin to Saint-Louis-du-Ha! Ha!, a distance of about 41 km (25.5 mi). It connects the 2 sections of Autoroute 85 and is the former designation for all of A-85.
Highway 102 is a north–south highway in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia that runs from Halifax to Onslow, immediately north of the town of Truro. It is the busiest highway in Atlantic Canada.
Highway 104 in Nova Scotia, Canada, runs from Fort Lawrence at the New Brunswick border near Amherst to River Tillard near St. Peter's. Except for the portion on Cape Breton Island between Port Hawkesbury and St. Peter's, it forms the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway across the province.
Highway 125 is a 28 km long controlled-access highway located in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality. The provincial government named it Peacekeepers Way on August 18, 2008. Part of the provincial 100-series arterial highway network, Highway 125 encircles the west side of Sydney Harbour, from an interchange with Highway 105 at Sydney Mines to Trunk 4 immediately east of Sydney.
A highway shield or route marker is a sign denoting the route number of a highway, usually in the form of a symbolic shape with the route number enclosed. As the focus of the sign, the route number is usually the sign's largest element, with other items on the sign rendered in smaller sizes or contrasting colors. Highway shields are used by travellers, commuters, and all levels of government for identifying, navigating, and organising routes within a given jurisdiction. Simplified highway shields often appear on maps.
Autoroute 85 is a Quebec Autoroute and the route of the Trans-Canada Highway in the province's Bas-Saint-Laurent region, also known as Autoroute Claude-Béchard. It is currently under construction with committed Federal and Provincial funding for its completion, with an estimated completion date of 2026. Once this upgrade is completed, it will close the last gap in the nearly continuous freeway section of the Trans-Canada between Arnprior, Ontario, and Antigonish, Nova Scotia, and for an even longer interprovincial freeway route between Windsor, Ontario and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Running between Rivière-du-Loup and a junction with New Brunswick Route 2 at the Quebec-New Brunswick border, A-85 when complete will be the only controlled access highway link between the Maritime Provinces and the rest of the country. A-85 is projected to be approximately 100 km (60 mi) long when construction is complete and is intended to replace Route 185, which has been called one of the deadliest highways in Canada.
Burnside Drive is a four-lane divided roadway, with a speed limit of 80 km/h, that serves the Burnside Business Park in the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) community of Dartmouth, Nova Scotia. The road parallels Highway 118, running north from exit 3 of Highway 111 to Akerley Boulevard, a western extension of Highway 107. Although some maps produced by the province show Burnside Drive, as well as a portion of Akerley Boulevard, as part of Highway 107, these roads are actually maintained by the HRM, and Highway 107 becomes Akerley Boulevard about halfway between Highway 118 and Burnside Drive.
Transportation in North America is performed through a varied transportation system, whose quality ranges from being on par with a high-quality European motorway to an unpaved gravelled back road that can extend hundreds of miles. There is also an extensive transcontinental freight rail network, but passenger railway ridership is lower than in Europe and Asia.
The 400-series highways were a pair of controlled-access highways located in the southwestern portion of the Canadian province of British Columbia, forming a special subset of the provincial highway system. Modelled after the 400-Series Highways in Ontario, 400-series designations were introduced in 1964 in conjunction with the completion of the Trans-Canada Highway freeway between Vancouver and Clearbrook ; however, unlike their Ontario counterparts, both routes had signalized sections. The 400-series system never expanded beyond two freeways, and in 1973 Highways 401 and 499 were renumbered 1 and 99 respectively, while the former routes were assigned the 'A' suffix.
This article describes the highway systems available in selected countries.
The réseau routier québécois is managed by the Quebec Ministry of Transportation and consists of about 185,000 kilometres (115,000 mi) of highways and roads. In addition, Quebec has almost 12,000 bridges, tunnels, retaining walls, culverts, and other structures such as the Quebec Bridge, the Pierre Laporte Bridge, the Laviolette Bridge and the Louis-Hippolyte Lafontaine Bridge–Tunnel.
