Hwy 43

[erablian]

I am about to start changing Hwy 43 from “major highway” to “freeway.” It’s four-lane divided, 110 km/h, but with at-grade intersections with crossroads every few miles, similar to Hwy 16 and Hwy 1.

Any objections?

[doctorkb]

Sounds reasonable…

[rschoenberger]

Interesting. I’ve been looking at Hwy 2 south of Calgary and thinking “why doesn’t it change to Major Highway once it starts having at-grade intersections?”

I’m OK having these 110 km/h, divided highways as Freeways if that’s the general consensus. It definitely deserves something higher than Hwy 3, Hwy 22, etc and other 100 km/h two-lane highways.

[doctorkb]

@rschoenberger

Interesting. I’ve been looking at Hwy 2 south of Calgary and thinking “why doesn’t it change to Major Highway once it starts having at-grade intersections?”

I’m OK having these 110 km/h, divided highways as Freeways if that’s the general consensus. It definitely deserves something higher than Hwy 3, Hwy 22, etc and other 100 km/h two-lane highways.

After some discussion, oh, probably about 8 months ago, the consensus was that (at least in Western Canada), a highway had to meet most (not all) of the usual Freeway requirements – otherwise we were effectively limiting ourselves from using that designator except right in the major centres.

Hwy 1 (for example) has at-grade intersections along its path from Manitoba to Vancouver. While it doesn’t deserve Freeway type for the entire distance, it does deserve it for most of the distance… being that it is the most major highway we have.

See http://www.waze.com/wiki/index.php/Canada#Alberta_Roads

When considering the road type, use the rules for the US as a guideline, with the idea that a Canadian “Freeway” may lack one of the criteria used in the US (e.g. Whitemud Freeway in Edmonton is 80 km/h, but meets all other criteria; Hwy 16 W of Edmonton doesn’t have ramps for every junction, but meets all other criteria)