Curious, curiouser, and curiousest

Curious: In the National Highway System Review Task Force Report, the Council of Ministers Responsible for Transportation and Highway Safety added to the National Highway System two very significant highways: Quebec Route 389 from Baie-Comeau to the Newfoundland/Labrador [sic] Border, and Routes 500/510 from the Quebec Border to the Blanc Sablon Ferry Terminal. (See page 52 of the report.)

By the time Tom Rideout got to re-announcing the news today, the definition of the Trans-Labrador Highway had changed to "from the Labrador west boundary to the southern Labrador boundary."

No reference to the ferry terminal, unlike route 430, whose limits of National significance are, "from the Trans Canada Highway at Deer Lake to the St. Barbe ferry terminal."

Did the two or three kilometres of Route 138, from the border west to the ferry terminal, get stricken from the list? Or does the province plan on moving the Labrador ferry terminal to, well, Labrador?

Curiouser: The provincial government press release downplays the addition of the Trans-Labrador Highway (and Route 389, without which the Trans-Labrador Highway is unconnected to the National Highway System). Just a mite odd, given

(a) the Trans-Labrador Highway is supposedly such an important priority for the provincial government, and

(b) the TLH accounts for fully 77% of the road-kilometres added yesterday to the NHS in Newfoundland and Labrador. In fact, the Trans-Labrador Highway single-handedly accounts for over 11% of the 10,412 kilometres of highway added to the NHS.

Curiousest: Route 340 is now an "Intermodal Connection (Core Routes)" (page 43 of the report.)

Route 340 connects the Trans-Canada Highway to Lewisporte.

Lewisporte's main (sole?) reason for being is as the southern terminus for the Labrador ferry Sir Robert Bond: a status which transportation minister Tom Rideout has said is temporary. ("Government plans to run freight and ferry service out of Lewisporte for another six to seven years, until Phase 3 of the Trans-Labrador Highway is completed, Rideout said." — St. John's Telegram, April 14, 2004, p. A3)

Tom Rideout is the MHA for Lewisporte.

There is, of course, no politically-intermodal connection involved in route 340's addition to the National highway system.