The Society for a Bridge over the Saguenay


The served area: Its road network

The North Shore road network is composed of two large road axes; the first one in the east-west axis follows the coast north of the St. Lawrence River from Tadoussac to Natashquan, 800 km away where it finishes. This road axis serves the industrial centres of Forestville, Baie-Comeau, Port-Cartier, Sept-Iles (Seven Islands) and Havre St-Pierre. The second large axis, highway 389 or the Trans-Quebec Labrador Highway, serves the northern part of the region. From Baie-Comeau, the highway 389 goes northeast to reach Labrador via Manic 5 and Fermont (560 km). This highway continues into Labrador as Highway 500 towards the town of Labrador City and then Happy Valley-Goose Bay for an additional 600 kilometres. Work is actually in progress along the Atlantic coast to connect Happy Valley to Cartwright and a road section of almost 300 km has been completed from Cartwright towards Red Bay which is itself connected to the coastal villages as far as Blanc-Sablon (PQ) where a ferry connects Labrador to St. Barbe on the Island of Newfoundland (crossing time : 1 hour 30 minutes).	Click here to visualize a large size.

The Trans-Quebec Labrador, formed by highway 389 and its Labrador continuation (highway 500) when it will be completed in about five years, will allow Baie-Comeau to be connected to Blanc-Sablon, a distance of nearly 1600 km in the heart of the boreal forest on the Atlantic Coast. We imagine that the road section to finish the highway 138 towards Blanc-Sablon from Natashquan will complete this new tourist circuit in the boreal forest and on the Atlantic coast of the country. Moreover, this completion would allow Newfoundlanders in the northeast of the Island to have rapid access to central Canadian cities without having to make a six hour ferry crossing, a time consuming trip through the Maritimes and Quebec and a long journey afterwards. (La route Trans-Québec Labrador, memoire_coalition.pdf 1 988KB, french only) This phase of access for the people of the Island of Newfoundland will be possible as soon as the safety and lack of hold-ups in the circulation on the highway 138 will be established by the construction of a bridge over the Saguenay River.

The opening of these new territories is already generating a great deal of interest for the mining, hydroelectric and petroleum industries.