Trans-Canada Highway, Mk. 2?

Let me explain. In Western Canada, there are two parallel highways - Highway 1 (the Trans-Canada) and Highway 16 (the Yellowhead Highway). However, in Eastern Canada (with exceptions like PEI and Newfoundland), the Trans-Canada Highway uses existing provincial routes and thus has many different names (i.e. in Québec, most of the Trans-Canada is routed through the existing autoroute network). In addition, to make matters worse (keeping on the Québec example), although autoroutes are a Québec thing, a lot of the North America atlases I've seen (mainly from AAA) usually lists them as "Canadian Autoroutes", as though they are the equivalent of the US Interstate Highway System.

Which leads to my question: could there be the possibility of a trans-Canada expressway system, alongside the TCH, that could be formed in somewhat of the same mold as the US Interstate Highway System, with the exception that (since roads are mainly a provincial jurisdiction) the provinces created it independently of the federal government? Provincial expressways (such as Ontario's 400-series highways) could probably be allowed and even co-exist with the new expressway system.
 
Ah, a nice thread involving Canada. :)

I don't know if building an interstate highway is feasible in Canada - wide distances, small population. Also remember that Canadian National Railways would disapprove too, and they were owned by the Canadian Government until 1995.
 
I'd agree with TheMann on that one - population centres in Canada are simply too widely dispersed too support the infrastructure of a divided highway a la teh Interstate system. Only in the Qubec City-Montreal-Toronto-Windsor corridor can it be justified, with some various local areas scattered around (Ottawa, Calgary-Edmonton, etc.).

Can you imagine what it would take to run a divided highway across northern Ontario from Sudbury to Thunder Bay, for instance? and to maintain it? There simply isn't enough road traffic running across that stretch to make it feasible for a province to maintain it.

The Interstate system also had a military purpose, in allowing quick redeployment of troops and material in the home land in the event of some sort of invasion. I believe it was also intended as providing emergency runways too. The fact that it completely transformed American logistics and urban growth was an unintended benefit/detriment. I don't see any Canadian government - Provincial or Federal - having the same reasoning.
 
Can you imagine what it would take to run a divided highway across northern Ontario from Sudbury to Thunder Bay, for instance? and to maintain it? There simply isn't enough road traffic running across that stretch to make it feasible for a province to maintain it.

There are many areas where the US Interstate system is under-utilized, and even in Quebec (where east-west is seen as parallel to the St. Lawrence and north-south is seen as perpindicular to the St. Lawrence) there are areas of the Autoroute system where it is underutilized. Plus, ATM, Hwy. 400 is going to be extended to Sudbury.
 
There are many areas where the US Interstate system is under-utilized, and even in Quebec (where east-west is seen as parallel to the St. Lawrence and north-south is seen as perpindicular to the St. Lawrence) there are areas of the Autoroute system where it is underutilized. Plus, .
There are always going to be stretches that are "under-utilized", but those are between two major centres with sufficient flow of goods and people between them. "ATM, Hwy. 400 is going to be extended to Sudbury" is a decades long project, not going to be finished soon; there's still 160 kn or so to go. Toronto to Sudbury just barely qualifies. Sudbury to Sault St. Marie does not, and SSM to Thunder Bay not a chance. Even the goods traffic between T Bay and Winnipeg os better served by rail traffic (high volume like grain and timber is cheaper by rail car than truck) So unless Ontario (in this case) gets in a mess like Japan where the road-building lobby has a lock on the politicians who then finance massive amounts of needless road-paving (which frankly I don't want to pay for) I just don't see it happening.
 
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