Bridge Damage at Nipigon Closes Hwy 17 – NO Travel through Northern Ontario

[The Bread Guy]

The easy solution is to upgrade the bush road that runs around the two lakes (Helen Lake and Polly Lake) to the North of the Bridge and put in a gravel road that is passable by trucks and motor vehicles.  It would require bridging the Nipigon River but a simple bailey bridge would probably suffice.  Keep the road plowed in the winter time and properly graded and the costs would probably be minimal.

That would indeed be LOADS cheaper and easier - and a lot shorter than I would have guessed (see attached map).  No idea about the technical issues, though.

You could cut the corner and go from Nipigon to Upsala, a much shorter build and still carve a good hunk out of that godawful drive.

That would certainly be shorter (+160 km), even though Bogart's "between the lakes" pass - also see attached.

$1M per km would be a good price for the Upsala bypass route (Ontario does have a hypothetical plan for it on file).  The current twinning work requires an insane amount of blasting as it is all hard bed rock up there.

I believe that - that's why I called the $1M/km estimate a "very-ballpark" one.  I believe I've also heard heard that estimate to drive a road from Nakina to the Ring of Fire.

 

[The Bread Guy]

The easy solution is to upgrade the bush road that runs around the two lakes (Helen Lake and Polly Lake) to the North of the Bridge and put in a gravel road that is passable by trucks and motor vehicles.  It would require bridging the Nipigon River but a simple bailey bridge would probably suffice.  Keep the road plowed in the winter time and properly graded and the costs would probably be minimal.

Actually, instead of my previously-mapped option, it would probably be easier to upgrade existing road to Cameron Falls, do a ~300m crossing and cut another 8 km or so back to the highway (see attached).