Sandi Krasowski
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Chronicle-Journal
As Northern Ontario’s section of the Trans-Canada Highway from Kenora and the Manitoba border to Sault Ste. Marie is said to lag in modernization and safety measures, two organizations are lobbying the governments to come on board.
The Northwestern Ontario Municipal Association (NOMA) and the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities (FONOM) are calling on the governments of Canada and Ontario to commit to modernizing the Trans-Canada Highway — highways 11 and 17 — across Northern Ontario as a nation-building priority.
Rick Dumas, NOMA president, says Ontario cannot remain the weak link in Canada’s national highway system. Ontario’s Trans-Canada remains largely two lanes, contributing to some of the highest collision and fatality rates in the country, claiming lives and disrupting the flow of more than 8,400 trucks moving $200 million in goods daily.
“(The Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities) has submitted another letter to the federal government about the trillions of dollars investment to develop and make Canada accessible throughout the whole country,” Dumas said.
“The gridlock in the bottleneck is simply from the Manitoba border to a little past Sault Ste. Marie, and once that’s done, we’ll have a four-lane highway across Canada. But then we’ve got the Highway 11 corridor, which is used by the commercial vehicle sector quite intensively.”
He added that all those trucks moving to and from British Columbia to southern Ontario are either taking Highway 11 back and forth through Cochrane, Beardmore and Greenstone, or Highway 17 down through Sault Ste. Marie up through Thunder Bay and westward.
“With truck traffic expected to double over the next decade, the case for urgent investment is undeniable,” he said.
The Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities has developed and proposed a balanced “toolbox” approach to improvements for the governments to consider. Dumas explained that the toolbox is simply a list of suggestions for ways to improve the highways depending on the terrain.
It includes selective twinning, four-lane expansion, and 2-plus-1 highway models, along the 3,000-kilometre corridor stretching from Québec to Manitoba. According to the Province of Ontario website, a 2-plus-1 highway system is a “three-lane highway with a centre passing lane that changes direction approximately every two to five kilometres.”
There is typically a barrier between the lanes aimed at stopping head-on collisions. The 2-plus-1 highway model is said to be more cost-efficient than twinning a highway.
“This corridor underpins national priorities such as the Ring of Fire, the NWMO nuclear facility in Ignace, expanded St. Lawrence port activity, and emerging proposals for a James Bay port,” Dumas told The Chronicle-Journal.
He also noted that there needs to be more rest stops with washroom facilities along the highways accessible to all travellers.
“The toolbox contains exactly that,” he said, adding that those are the kind of things in the toolbox that (Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities) is identifying as options.
“When the government of Canada is talking about investing trillions of dollars to open up our country to make it safe and reliable and have products transported through Canada freely, we need the highways to be safely open.”
