{"id":746556,"date":"2026-06-19T04:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T04:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/746556\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T04:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T04:54:10","slug":"quebec-scraps-long-awaited-400-km-highway-extension-on-lower-north-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/746556\/","title":{"rendered":"Quebec scraps long-awaited 400-km highway extension on Lower North Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"

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A promised 400-kilometre highway bridging Quebec\u2019s isolated Lower North Shore region to the rest of the province is no longer in the works, according to Quebec Transport Minister Benoit Charette.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Questioned at the end of May in a budgetary parliamentary committee<\/a>, he said the extension of Highway 138 will look different \u2014 and not be 400 kilometres.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we were to do only, strictly road transit, it would cost us several billion dollars,\u201d he said. \u201cGoing solely with a road is not the best solution.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

He said currently, it takes about 54 hours to complete the stretch by a mixture of planes, vehicles, and sometimes ferry, but once an “intervention plan” is implemented, the government hopes to reduce that commute to about 16 hours.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a vast territory,\u201d said Charette.<\/p>\n

In a post on X Thursday afternoon, Charette said the extension of Highway 138 is still a priority project. <\/p>\n

“The government has revised the Route 138 extension project into an action plan and is currently working on prioritizing the actions that will be carried out,” he wrote. <\/p>\n

\"AA map of how the planned extension project of Highway 138 on Quebec’s Lower North Shore was intended to look. (Minist\u00e8re des Transports du Qu\u00e9bec)<\/p>\n

Highway 138 currently extends all the way up Quebec’s Lower North Shore but abruptly ends in Kegaska before picking up again in Old-Fort Bay \u2014 just 75 kilometres southwest of the border between Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador.<\/p>\n

About a dozen towns between Old Fort Bay and Kegaska have long advocated for the progression of the road \u2014 which would connect them to the rest of the province.<\/p>\n

In 2021, then minister of transport Fran\u00e7ois Bonnardel revealed the timeline <\/a>for the project. The first two small sections were supposed to be completed by 2025 with a $695.5 million investment.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But the roadwork has been subject to a number of delays.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a discussion for the better part of 40 years, says Daren Jones, prefect of the MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent <\/p>\n

\u201cThese setbacks have been done before,\u201d he said.\u00a0\u201cThey don’t see this as important.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jones takes issue with the lack of communication from the province. He found out about the 400-kilometre project being scrapped through news reports.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am an elected official on the Lower North Shore, elected by the people. And I have to find out about this through that,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He notes a ferry service is also not the go-to solution now for the whole region \u2014 considering likely delays due to weather and wind. <\/p>\n

In a news release Thursday evening, the MRC du Golfe-du-Saint-Laurent says they were “blindsided” by this announcement and called for an urgent meeting with the Quebec government to agree on an action plan to improve transportation for residents. <\/p>\n

“MRC elected officials wish to remind the provincial government that the desire to see Route 138 extended to Blanc-Sablon stems from dissatisfaction with the quality of the transportation alternatives already available,” read the news release. <\/p>\n

“Our population deserves the same rights and opportunities as all Canadians, and improving the quality of transportation is not a luxury for the Lower North Shore.”<\/p>\n

Kateri Champagne Jourdain, the MNA representing the region, declined CBC’s interview request. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 3 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":746557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-746556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=746556"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/746556\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/746557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=746556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=746556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=746556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}