Navigating the triangle at Rue Lachapelle, Blvd. Laurentien, and Rue de Salaberry.


NB from Montréal into Laval. Although QC 117 followed Blvd. Laurentien out of the triangle, the bridge is named Pont Lachapelle after the other branch of the fork. This is the older side, dating to 1930, while the SB arch span dates to 1975. Although they are completely different structures, they complement each other very nicely.


Blvd. Dagenais WB at QC 117.


NB through the pit of ugliness, ending at a much nicer sign at QC 344. QC 117 doesn't get a second chance to cross A-15 until a pair of half-interchanges around Ste-Adèle, over 50 km to the north, and one final, full interchange at Ste-Agathe-des-Monts. Considering the routes are never more than a couple of km apart, that's pretty impressive. These attempts at A-15 shields, however, are not impressive in the least.


SB at the eastern beginning of Autoroute 50, which is now a continuous freeway to Gatineau. That's right, it doesn't actually end at A-15.


Rang Ste-Marguerite WB at QC 117. See if you can spot the error. One problem caused by Québec's abandonment of red squares and yellow diamonds is that stupid errors can't be spotted by the color-blind.


NB in St-Jérôme and its eponymous Cathédrale. Wide shields for 2-digit autoroutes, such as this one at Rue de Martigny, are typically only found on BGS, which makes this an error.


NB and SB at the A-15 Sortie 43 freeway spur - see the typical use of the wide shield? The St-Jérôme sign is on QC 117 proper, but it flows directly into this spur, forcing QC 117 traffic to exit itself. From 1959 to 1963, this spur was part of the northern end of A-15, until a northward extension around Ste-Adèle to get more skiing traffic to the mountains. (When A-15 was further extended in 1974, the spur there was mostly graded over, leaving just a SB onramp.)

All remaining photos are northbound.


QC 117 remains extra-wide north of A-15 for a couple of km, as if the Autoroute was supposed to be extended up this corridor. Instead, the extension stayed west of Rivière St-Maurice. The last two photos are in Prévost after the road narrows back to a 12-foot median.


Exit numbers and widening construction; is A-15 coming to St-Jovite? Not now, but don't rule it out in the future. More work would be needed north of Ste-Agathe-des-Monts, but this gets the next two population centers out of the way, so it's not a huge stretch to imagine an eventual A-15.


In fact, La Conception (next town to the north) is also bypassed, and in August 2012, work was underway as seen here to bypass Labelle. Current QC 117 will become village access, passing under the overpass in the last photo. With Rivière-Rouge also bypassed, A-15 could ultimately make it up to the QC 321 split, just about doubling the length of the Autoroute des Laurentides and not quite passing A-55 as longest north-south Autoroute in the province.


The bypass merges back in, with QC 117 occupying the end of the future NB roadway.


It's still recreational territory this far away from Montréal, and in fact all the way along 117 to Grand-Remous. I think it's easier to get across the road if you sit on your bike instead of trying to stand on the handlebar and seat.


While I stopped to refuel, I spied this old gem down a side road. Québec would never allow a bilingual sign like this anywhere except English-majority settlements anymore, and even then only grudgingly.


Across the Gatineau River in Grand-Remous.

To A-13
Onto A-15
Onto QC 344
Onto A-50
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