A stretch of Highway 11 North of the city will become a three-lane highway.
The province has announced the pilot project includes a centre passing lane that changes direction approximately every two to five kilometres and is separated by a barrier.
“Our government is moving forward with the first-ever 2+1 highway pilot in North America to help make our roads safer,” said Caroline Mulroney, Minister of Transportation. “This was a solution that was developed by people who use the roads in northern Ontario, who know what the challenges are and identified this model as something that our Government needed to test out. I’m very pleased that we’re going to start implementing that.”
The top two locations for the proposed 2+1 highway pilot include:
- Highway 11 from Sand Dam Road to Ellesmere Road (14 kilometres)
- Highway 11 from Highway 64 to Jumping Caribou Lake Road (16 kilometres)
Mulroney says public comment is being received on the Ministry of Transportation’s Technical Consultation Portal until January 11, 2022.
She says after that they’ll get to work on the project.
“It will take some time to design the three-laning for environmental assessment, property acquisition and so on. It’ll take about three or four years to build out the infrastructure, but we’re moving as quickly as we can,” Mulroney says.
“The City of North Bay would like to thank the Ontario government for moving ahead with this important pilot project to help make highway travel in Ontario safer,” says Al McDonald, Mayor of The City of North Bay. “This is especially important in Northern Ontario where winter conditions can be severe and some major corridors such as Highway 11 north are limited to two lanes.”
The province says the 2+1 highway pilot is part of the government’s plan to build Ontario by getting shovels in the ground on critical infrastructure projects that support safe communities, economic growth and job creation.
