D O S S I E R
AT ALMOST 45, HIGHWAY 417 REMAINS IMPORTANT LINK
GREGG CHAMBERLAIN gregg.chamberlain@eap.on.ca
Almost 45 years ago, the last section of Highway 417 was completed. The last strip of asphalt cooled in time to handle the flood of traffic from Ottawa to Montréal for the 1976 Olympic Games. Before the 417, Highway 17, along the Ottawa River from Hawkesbury to Orléans, was the main connection for traffic, both passenger and freight, between Montréal and Ottawa. Part of the original Trans-Canada Highway, the meandering two-lane route, had earned the unwelcome nickname of “the killer strip” by the late 1960s/early 1970s. As it was hard-pressed to handle the growing amount of high-speed traffic flowing between the two urban centres, the Department of Highways of Ontario (DoH) began looking at alternatives as part of their overall regional highway planning studies. “During the 1960s, the Department of Highways did a number of these studies,” explained Cameron Bevers, a project mana- ger with the Ministry of Transportation, the successor to the DoH. Bevers is an unofficial historian of Onta- rio’s highway heritage. He has made a point of seeking out, collecting, and collating the various studies, technical reports, and other documents related to the province’s official road networks. Highway 417 was part of a comprehensive report, The Eastern Ontario Highway Planning Study (EOHP), presented to senior government officials in 1966. The study The EOHP was a three-year analysis and projection of traffic needs for all of Eastern Ontario. DoH staff took existing statistics from 1963 on traffic, land use, employment, and other factors, and used them to predict what kind of a highway system the region would need to handle traffic over the next 20 years, into the mid-1980s.“What they were trying to do was map the origin and destination centres for traffic,” Bevers said. Over a three-year period, highway depart- ment staff collected traffic survey information from more than 50,000 drivers, either on the various roads through Eastern Ontario or going door-to-door with clipboards and survey sheets in hand. They asked drivers where they came from, where they were going, and why they were on the road. Was it a business trip or a pleasure drive ? Added to all this survey data were results of traffic counts, soil profile studies, terrain reviews, and other information. Based on these details, highway planners then mapped out the major lines of travel through the region, and tried to figure out the fastest, shortest route possible from Montréal to Ottawa and back. They took that “virtual route” and compared it with existing routes
L’autoroute 417, de la frontière du Québec à Ottawa, est l’une des principales routes traversant l’Est ontarien depuis son achèvement au milieu des années 1970. Certains tronçons de l’autoroute ont été refaits entre 2000 et 2003, remplaçant l’asphalte délabré par une chaussée en béton moins coûteuse et plus durable. —photo Gregg Chamberlain
to see if they could find as close a match as possible. “They found that the major desired route was a straight line between Ottawa and Montréal,” said Bevers. Which presented a problem, because it did not exist. Standard procedure for DoH staff in their regional planning studies was to determine if the best solution was to build a new highway altogether, or create a connecting link to an existing highway or major county road. “What they were trying to do was to find the right balance,” Bevers said, noting that a new and modern for the time four-lane freeway system, to provide a faster connec- tion between Montréal and Ottawa, also needed to provide connections to the various nearby communities along the route, like Hawkesbury, Vankleek Hill, or Casselman. So an exact “straight line route” was not possible. The draft plan for the 417, a “Kings highway” or freeway, ran almost straight past the Hawkesbury and Vankleek Hill areas, with slight bends to allow for the proposed interchange exit/entrance connectors for those communities. Past the Vankleek Hill area, the original route plan was for the 417 to pass north of Casselman. Instead it ended up with a wide curve south before resuming its way towards Ottawa. A more detailed soil profile
study revealed that the cost to build a bridge, needed along that section of the route, would prove too expensive, so south of the village went the highway. “The ultimate route for Highway 417 still struck a good balance,” noted Bevers, “between the desired lines of travel to and from Ottawa and Montréal, Ottawa and Cornwall, and Cornwall and Hawkesbury.” Concrete results Construction of Highway 417 began May 1969, starting from Baseline Road, now known as Ramsayville Road, on the east side of Ottawa, with construction crews moving east, section by section over a six- year period, towards the Québec border and Autoroute 40. Construction roads backtracked at the end of those half dozen of years, to lay the last section of the 417, connecting it with the Queensway in Ottawa. The new and complete Highway 417 opened to traffic on December 2, 1975, well in time for the following year’s flood of tourist traffic east to Montréal for the Summer Olympics. That was not the end of the work on the 417. One thing about the highway that many motorists notice, is that for some sec- tions the pavement is concrete, instead of asphalt. Mike Baird, a pavement design and evaluation officer with the present Ontario
Ministry of Transportation, explained the history behind that. “Between 2000 and 2003, some sections had to be reconstructed,” Baird said. “It was in such bad shape that it had to be rebuilt.” The problem, he noted, was that some of the material used for the “hot mix” asphalt used during the original construction of the highway was not as hard-wearing as expected. The sections of the highway in the worst shape had their original hot-mix surfaces stripped off and replaced with concrete pavement. “Basically, because of cost,” Baird said, regarding the decision favouring concrete over a new layer of asphalt. Concrete pave- ment, he noted, is cheaper and more durable than asphalt for high-traffic routes. The ori- ginal 401 Highway to Toronto was concrete. With the 417, also, the soil profile was ideal for the sections done over in concrete. “It was all pretty much the same,” Baird said, “with little variation, not like changing suddenly from dirt to rock.” Other than the concrete replacement pavement poured early in the new century, Highway 417 has not needed any major revamping since it was completed in the mid-1970s. Its 180-plus kilometres have proven more than capable of handling its traffic burden over five decades and now carrying on into its sixth.
LES FRAISES DU QUÉBEC ET LES FÈVES JAUNES SONT ARRIVÉES À TRÈS BAS PRIX
2120, Old Hwy 17 Clarence-Rockland (coin lumières) • Lun-mar-merc-sam-dim de 8h à 18 h • Jeu-ven de 8h à 19 h
Made with FlippingBook HTML5