Traveling on this highway may get you eaten by rogue sheep, old Utah state highway shields, or cottage cheese. Or maybe fog. Those crazy Canadians...


Paralleling QC 148 to the north is future A-50, traveling through long series of rock cuts that are undoubtedly wide enough for four lanes, but undoubtedly only filled with two for the time being. Apparently all interchange grading and overpasses are complete, based on aerial photos, but I didn't have time to get to Ottawa and back and also explore A-50. Maybe next time.


Slot this old westbound distance sign between the second and third photos above. Chene is a special kind of French oak, used in wine barrels (well, where else?), so this is Oak Point in 6 km, and Gatineau (which absorbed Hull recently) in 95 km.


Nothing odd about this westbound sign assembly except the distance. Why 280 meters? Why not move the sign back 20 meters for an even 300? And no, it doesn't translate into English units either (it's about 920 feet).


Looking west from the overpass of closed A-50, just west of its terminus at approximate Sortie 255. The trail to the west extends many kilometers, but is not yet paved. Like most new Québec freeways, this quickly comes back from the dualization of the Lachute bypass into a Super-2, as seen in the second photo. A-50 will be paved at some point in the near future and then opened to traffic, but extension of dualization will wait a considerably longer time than that.


Skipping ahead a bit to QC 344, the route of many wonders. Somehow, one of the wonders ended up on this page, but I urge you to visit the 344 page (linked below) to see the rest of them.


Here's the back of that same assembly. As you can see, these shields have been recycled, but what's not immediately obvious is that these shields predate the early 1970's (SPUI says 1973-4, based on Rand McNally) renumbering of the entire Québec provincial highway system. After the renumbering, Autoroutes retained their one- or two-digit status, and all provincial routes were three-digit highways beginning with 1, 2, or 3. Loop and spur Autoroutes begin with 4 through 9, making a system perfectly guarded against redundancy. Before the renumbering, though, there were plenty of one- and two-digit provincial highways, as well as some suffixed routes thrown in. As I said, the QC 344 has plenty more of these, but for now, here are some closeups:


Route 18 (notice how the fleur-de-lis tripled up and pushed out the word "ROUTE") is now QC 125, running north from Montréal to Saint-Donat. Route 31 is now QC 327, running from Lachute to Mont-Tremblant to the west of Montréal. Neither route is terribly far away from this assembly.

Onto A-50
Onto QC 344 for some more old signs
Back to Québec Roads
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