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Trans-Canada Highway
Route Transcanadienne
Route information
Length	8,030 km (4,990 mi)South route:2,960 km (1,840 mi)
Existed	30 July 1962–present
Major junctions
From	Victoria, British Columbia
To	St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador
Location
Country	Canada
Major cities	Victoria, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Regina, Saskatoon, Winnipeg, Ottawa, Montreal, Quebec City, Charlottetown, Fredericton, Moncton, St. John's
Highway system
Trans-Canada Highway

The Trans-Canada Highway (French: Route Transcanadienne) is a transcontinental federal-provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada between its Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Ocean coasts to the west and east respectively. It is, along with the Trans-Siberian Highway and Australia's Highway 1, one of the world's longest national highways, with the main route spanning 8,030 km (4,990 mi). The system was approved by the Trans-Canada Highway Act of 1949, with construction commencing in 1950. The highway officially opened in 1962, and was completed in 1971. The highway system is recognizable by its distinctive white-on-green maple leaf route markers.

Throughout much of Canada, there are at least two routes designated as part of the Trans-Canada Highway (TCH). For example, in the western provinces, both the main Trans-Canada route and the Yellowhead Highway are part of the Trans-Canada system. Though the system does not enter either of Canada's three northern territories or provide a connection to the United States to the south, the Trans-Canada Highway forms part of Canada's overall national highway system that provides connections to both the Northwest Territories and Yukon as well as numerous connections to the United States.

Jurisdiction

Canada does not have a comprehensive national highway system, as decisions about highway and freeway construction are entirely under the jurisdiction of the individual provinces. In 2000 and 2001, the government of Jean Chrétien considered funding an infrastructure project to have the full Trans-Canada system converted to freeway. Although freeway construction funding was made available to some provinces for portions of the system, the government ultimately decided not to pursue a comprehensive highway conversion. Opposition to funding the freeway upgrade was due to low traffic levels on parts of the Trans-Canada. Other provinces preferred the money going towards improving vital trade routes (often not inter-provincial).

Plans for a freeway to bypass or eliminate traffic congestion and road hazards along the heavily travelled route from Victoria to Nanaimo on Vancouver Island were cancelled during the recession that followed the 1987 stock market crash. The cancellation was confirmed in 1995 by the federal government's "war on the deficit" and British Columbia's subsequent highway capital spending freeze. The latter was lifted from the Trans-Canada Highway development program on the BC mainland as renewed federal funding and new public-private partnerships became available in the early 2000s to support the 2010 Winter Olympics and the Pacific Gateway transportation initiative. However, the freeze was largely left in place for the Vancouver Island TCH which was becoming seen mostly as a commercial local service corridor isolated from the increasingly high-mobility highway networks on the Canadian mainland.

There have also been discussions of upgrading the Trans-Labrador Highway (Quebec Route 389/Newfoundland and Labrador Route 500) to Trans-Canada Highway standards (fully paved, two lanes with shoulders, 90 km/h speed limit).

Route numbering on the Trans-Canada Highway is also handled by the provinces. The Western provinces have coordinated their highway numbers so that the main Trans-Canada route is designated Highway 1 and the Yellowhead route is designated Highway 16 throughout; however, from the Manitoba–Ontario border eastwards, the highway numbers change at each provincial boundary, or even change within a province as the TCH piggybacks along separate provincial highways en route. As the Trans-Canada route was composed of sections from pre-existing provincial highways, it is unlikely that the Trans-Canada Highway will ever have a uniform designation across the whole country.

ASU

The "mile zero" concept

Although there does not appear to be any nationally sanctioned "starting point" for the entire Trans-Canada Highway system, St. John's has adopted this designation for the section of highway running in the city by using the term "Mile One" for its sports stadium and convention centre complex, Mile One Centre. Likewise, the Victoria terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway, located at the foot of Douglas Street and Dallas Road at Beacon Hill Park, is marked by a "mile zero" monument. The Trans-Canada Highway has been posted in kilometres since 1977, when all Canadian roads switched to metric.

Although Highway 4 was commissioned in 1953 and is technically not part of the Trans-Canada Highway system, there is also a sign marking the Pacific terminus of the Trans-Canada Highway at Tofino, British Columbia, where Highway 4 terminates in the west, but it was most likely erected before 1953. Tofino was a strong proponent of a Trans-Canada Highway since the 1920s, when the only roads in the area were gravel, recognizing the need for tourism. The community was bypassed by the official Trans-Canada Highway in the 1950s, when government prioritized the connection of major communities in its budgets, choosing instead to connect Nanaimo with Victoria.

See also

• Trans-Canada Trail
• List of Canadian highways by province

References

1. CBC Digital Archives—Trans-Canada Highway: Bridging the Distance
2. "Trans-Canada Highway". Unpublished Guides. Library and Archives of Canada. Retrieved 29 July 2011.
3. Department of Justice Canada—Trans-Canada Highway Act—R.S.C. 1970, c. T-12
4. Transport Canada—The Trans-Canada Highway
5. "National Highway System" (PDF). Transport Canada. Retrieved 18 January 2013.

External links

• Trans-canada highway.com—Detailed province by province description
• Trans-Canada Highway travel guide from Wikivoyage

v t e Routes of the Trans-Canada Highway system
British Columbia	Highway 1 Highway 5 Highway 16
Alberta	Highway 1 Highway 16
Saskatchewan	Highway 1 Highway 16
Manitoba	Highway 1 Highway 16 Highway 100
Ontario	Highway 17 Highway 69 Highway 400 Highway 12 Highway 7 Highway 71 Highway 11 Highway 66 Highway 417
Quebec	Autoroute 40 Autoroute 25 Autoroute 20 Autoroute 85 Route 185 Route 117 Autoroute 15
New Brunswick	Route 2 Route 16
	Confederation Bridge
Prince Edward Island	Route 1
Nova Scotia	Highway 104 Highway 105 Highway 106
Newfoundland	Route 1
Category Roads portal Canada portal WikiProject

• Use dmy dates from September 2010
• Trans-Canada Highway