New Brunswick Route 1

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Route 1

Saint John Throughway, Mackay Highway

Length:

231.4 km^[1] (143.8 mi)

Formed:

1927

West end:

SR 9 in Calais, ME

Major
junctions:

Route 3 near St. Stephen

Route 7 near Saint John

Route 10 near Sussex

East end:

Route 2 (TCH) near Salisbury

Provincial highways in New Brunswick
< Image:NB 970.png Route 970		Route 2 (TCH) >

Route 1 is an important highway in the southern part of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. It runs for 231 kilometres (143 miles) in an east-west direction from the Canada-United States border at St. Stephen to Route 2 at River Glade.

The eastern 155 km of Route 1 has been upgraded to a 4-lane controlled-access freeway (from Lepreau to River Glade). The remaining 86 km western portion of the highway running through Charlotte County is mostly 2-lane (non-divided) with a mixture of controlled and non-controlled access, however this section is scheduled to be upgraded by 2010.

1 Communities served
2 History
3 Future plans
4 Exit list
5 References

[edit] Communities served

Looking eastbound in Saint John

The highway begins at St. Stephen at the Canada-U.S. border and encounters the following communities as it proceeds east:

Oak Bay
Digdeguash
St. George
Pennfield
New River Beach
Pocologan
Lepreau
Musquash
Prince of Wales
Saint John
Rothesay
Quispamsis
Hampton
Norton
Sussex
Penobsquis
Anagance
Petitcodiac

The highway ends east of Petitcodiac at River Glade where it interchanges with Route 2, the Trans-Canada Highway.

[edit] History

The majority of road development in New Brunswick follows settlement patterns which pre-dated motor transport, thus most communities developed along navigable waterways or were served by railways. The development of controlled access expressways only began in the 1960s and only around the largest communities. The majority of early provincial highway improvements merely consisted of upgrading local roads.

[edit] Early route

Route 1 initially followed local roads from St. Stephen eastward to Oak Bay where it swung south to the town of St. Andrews, then back north and east (still along local roads) until reaching Saint John where it followed Manawagonish Road through the former city of Lancaster and was later diverted to follow the "Golden Mile" immediately south of Manawagonish Road. It crossed the Saint John River at the Reversing Falls Bridge before proceeding on Douglas Avenue into the north end of the city. From there it went over to Rothesay Avenue and followed the shores of the Kennebecasis River up the valley to Sussex where it ended.

[edit] Saint John Throughway

The earliest significant upgrade to this routing came in the late 1960s during an urban-renewal project in Saint John which saw the construction of a new highway (the Saint John Throughway) to bypass increased truck traffic around the city. Several alignment options were examined with the majority of citizens wanting the highway to go north of the city through the suburb of Millidgeville from where an easier crossing of the Reversing Falls gorge could be attempted.

However, the city, along with the provincial and federal governments, decided to bargain with the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to purchase the majority of the Mill Street Yard near the neo-gothic Union Station for a highway alignment which would run through the middle of the city (somewhat like the infamous Interstate 93 alignment which was built through Boston).

The removal of the rail yard and historic station coincided with the federally-controlled National Harbours Board building the 4-lane Saint John Harbour Bridge downstream of the Reversing Falls which opened in 1968. Part of this deal involved the NHB collecting a 25¢ toll in each direction, however the toll cannot be raised without federal, provincial and municipal agreement, until 2007 when the toll was increased to 50¢. The new bridge also had the added effect of cutting the upper part of Saint John Harbour off from large ship traffic.

In a related project, in 1969, the federal and provincial governments worked with CPR to revamp the Saint John-Digby ferry service by building a new terminal in the city's west end, along with interchanges off the new expressway.

[edit] Mackay Highway

The Saint John Throughway only extended from Spruce Lake at Lorneville in the west, to where it met Rothesay Avenue in the east at Coldbrook but its construction coincided with the decline of rail traffic and rise of truck traffic and personal automobile travel. The Saint John area soon saw the growth of suburbs in the towns of Rothesay and Quispamsis in the Kennebecasis River valley, which were located just outside the Bay of Fundy's "fog belt."

In the 1970s, an extension to the throughway was built east from Rothesay Avenue to just past the town of Quispamsis where Route 1 reverted to local roads up the valley to Hampton and beyond. This controlled-access 2-lane section bypassing these towns was named the Mackay Highway, having been built through a stretch of timberland formerly owned by the locally prominent Mackay family.

[edit] Extending Controlled Access

In a new focus on improving arterial highways in the province, the provincial government during the 1960s-1980s undertook other improvements to Route 1, namely in building new sections (or designating existing sections) as controlled access. This resulted in the establishment of maximum speed limits of 100 km/h (65 mph) on these sections.

A 2-lane bypass of Hampton was built up the Kennebecasis Valley from where the McKay Highway ended, rejoining local roads at Norton. Another bypass was built from Oak Bay to Digdeguash to avoid the circuitous routing down the St. Andrews peninsula and through the town of the same name. Further 2-lane bypasses were built around St. George and on the outskirts of Sussex where an interchange with the Trans-Canada Highway was built.

[edit] 4-lane Construction

The provincial government changed in 1987 with the election of Premier Frank McKenna who was focused on improving the province's business climate. One of the government's major tasks was to revamp provincial transportation infrastructure and McKenna entered into aggressive negotiations with the federal government of prime minister Brian Mulroney to secure federal funding of new highway projects. McKenna viewed the Trans-Canada and Route 1 in New Brunswick as being partially a federal responsibility since they funnelled the majority of Atlantic Canada's highway traffic to the U.S. and central Canada. The signing of the Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement in 1989, coupled with federal approval for numerous railway line abandonments in the Maritimes during the 1980s, led to predictions of further highway traffic growth on New Brunswick highways in the 1990s.

Under the remainder of the McKenna administration's years of power (until 1997), Route 1 saw 4-lane expansion and upgrading between Lorneville to Lepreau in the west and between Coldbrook and Apohaqui (near Sussex) in the east. A small 4-lane re-alignment was also built between St. George and Pennfield. The Trans-Canada Highway (Route 2) was also upgraded to 4-lanes between Penobsquis and Peticodiac.

[edit] Trans-Canada Re-alignment

The final years of the McKenna administration saw an agreement signed with a private consortium called Maritime Road Development Corporation (led by former provincial Liberal leader and former federal Minister of Transport Douglas Young) to privately finance and build a toll highway to carry the Trans-Canada Highway (Route 2) in a new alignment from a point west of Fredericton to a point on the existing TCH west of Moncton at River Glade.

The toll issue was not without controversy as it led to the downfall of McKenna's successor, Camille Theriault in 1999 to PC leader Bernard Lord. The highway was built, but tolls were removed from most portions of the highway before they opened and this portion of the privately built (and owned) re-alignment of the Trans-Canada Highway has a hidden toll which is charged to the provincial government, thus motorists do not directly pay for their highway usage.

The new alignment of the Trans-Canada Highway opened in October, 2001 and at this time the portion of the old TCH which ran between River Glade and Sussex was re-designated as part of Route 1, extending the eastern terminus of this highway approximately 40 km (25 miles). Plans called for completion of a 4-lane bypass to replace the old TCH alignment around Sussex and construction took place from 2000–2004. A portion of the old TCH alignment from Sussex toward Fredericton has been re-designated as Route 10 and a re-aligned interchange has been built at Sussex.

[edit] Saint John Exit Upgrades

An experiment with Sunbury's new A-Train's led to the redesign of highway exit 119. Exit 119-B, west-bound, was widened to allow these longer transport truck configurations to navigate the exit. On the opposite side of the highway, the two east-bound on-ramps were combined into a wider single ramp, again to allow easier navigation for the longer transport trucks to navigate.

A east-bound exit was never officially available at exit 128, as it was only a private truck entrance into Strescon's property. In the fall of 2007, this exit was rebuilt into an official exit to allow east-bound traffic access to Rothesay Ave. East-bound traffic can now exit/enter to/from Rothesay Ave (via Ashburn Road) and west-bound traffic can exit/enter to/from Foster Thurston Drive. There is no overpass at this exit.

[edit] Future plans

In summer 2003 the federal and provincial governments signed a major highway funding agreement to complete 4-lane upgrades to the TCH (Route 2) in the upper Saint John River valley as well as to Route 1 from Lepreau west to the Canada-U.S. border. Part of this agreement includes funding (in conjunction with Maine and the U.S. federal government) for construction of a third bridge over the St. Croix River to carry heavy traffic in a bypass north of Calais and St. Stephen.
In the late 1990s the "St. Stephen Truck Route" was built from a point on Route 1 east of St. Stephen to the border crossing at Milltown just north of the town. A 4-lane upgrade and/or re-alignment of Route 1 (including part of the St. Stephen Truck Route) is now being built in stages from this future border crossing just north of the Milltown bridge, east to Oak Bay, then to Digdeguash, and St. George, and from Pennfield to Lepreau.
Within the next several years, it is expected that there will be a new interchange built along the Saint John Throughway. This so-called "One Mile House" interchange derives its name for the section of Saint John located along the railway 1 mile east of the former Union Station. The interchange will be one of the most expensive ever built in the province and is intended to route truck traffic away from the Uptown and straight to the industrial parks on the East Side. It will be located immediately east of the Crown Street exit and will consist of a fly-over ramp from the westbound lanes across the highway and adjacent CN Island Yard to connect with Rothesay Avenue and Russel Street.

[edit] Exit list

Location	#	Destinations	Notes
Waweig	25	Image:NB 127.png Route 127	At-grade
Digdeguash	39	Image:NB 127.png Route 127	At-grade
St. George	52	Manor Street	At-grade
St. George	56	Image:NB 172.png Image:NB 780.png Route 172 / Route 780 – St. George, Deer Island, Lake Utopia
Pennfield	60	Image:NB 176.png Image:NB 778.png Image:NB 785.png Route 176 / Route 778 / Route 785 – Black Harbour, Grand Manan, Lake Utopia
Lepreau	86	Image:NB 790.png Route 790 – Lepreau, Maces Bay, Dipper Harbour
Musquash	96	Image:NB 790.png Route 790 – Musquash, Chance Harbour
Prince of Wales	103	Prince of Wales
Lorneville	112	Route 100 – Lorneville
Saint John	114	Route 7 – Grand Bay-Westfield, Fredericton
	117	Route 100 (Fairville Boulevard)	Westbound exit only
	119	To Route 100 / Bleury Street, Catherwood Street north – Reversing Falls	Signed as exits 119A (Bleury Street) and 119B (Catherwood Street)
	120	Digby Ferry
	121	Route 100 (Chesley Drive)	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
	122	Saint John Centre	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
	123	To Route 100 / Somerset Street – Saint John Centre
	125	To Route 100 / Crown Street	No eastbound exit
	128	Foster Thurston Drive, Ashburn Road
	129	Route 100 (Rothesay Avenue)
Rothesay	133	To Route 100 – Rothesay
Rothesay	137	Route 111 to Route 100 – St. Martins, Saint John Airport, Rothesay, Quispamsis	Signed as exits 137A (Route 111) and 137B (to Route 100)
Quispamsis	141	Image:NB 119.png Route 119 – Quispamsis, Kingston
Quispamsis	142	To Route 110 – Quispamsis, Nauwigewauk	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
Hampton	158	Image:NB 121.png Route 100 to Route 121 – Hampton
Bloomfield	166	Bloomfield
Norton	175	Image:NB 124.png Image:NB 865.png Route 124 / Route 865 – Norton, Apohaqui
Sussex	192	Image:NB 121.png Route 121 to Route 10 – Sussex, Fredericton
	193	Route 10 / Roachville Road – Fredericton	No westbound entrance
	195	Image:NB 890.png Route 890 – Sussex, Smiths Creek
Sussex Corner	198	Route 111 / Route 114 – Sussex, Sussex Corner, St. Martins, Penobsquis
Penobsquis	211	Route 114 – Alma, Penobsquis, Fundy National Park
Anagance	223	Image:NB 895.png Route 895 – Portage Vale, Anagance
Petitcodiac	233	Image:NB 166.png Image:NB 955.png Route 166 / Route 955 – Elgin, Petitcodiac
River Glade	239	Route 106 – River Glade
River Glade		Route 2 (TCH) – Fredericton, Moncton	Eastbound exit and westbound entrance