One of my interests has always been the study of maps. There is something about those little coloured lines across an expanse of paper which fascinates me. As there are many sites dedicated to the highways of Ontario, my natal province, but, as of yet, none for Manitoba, my current home, I thought it would be worthwhile assembling one. Ultimately, I would like this to be a little more php & database driven, but it's important to just get it up. I've been chipping away at this project for about two years now. It is the product of many hours spent poring over maps. To the best of my knowledge, this is a complete list of provincially listed highways with their locations. Eventually I will key the starting and ending points to the legend on the official provincial road map, but for now I simply want to get my research out there.
Every jurisdiction has its own terminology for the major roads. In Manitoba there are three main classes of road: Trans-Canada Highways (TCH), Provincial Trunk Highways (PTH), and Provincial Roads (PR). (There is also a 600 series which is referred to occasionally on sites such as Road Conditions-- 600 series roads are community access roads and are not part of the highway system per se.) There are also provincially maintained winter roads, but these are not highways per se. As such, I have left them out of this site. PTH and PR are roughly analogous to the 1-199 and 500-699 series in Ontario, respectively. There is no freeway series in Manitoba, though brief stretches of the TCH and some major PTHs have freeway-style interchanges. The PTH series in Manitoba are classified as Expressways (4-lane divided, restricted access), Primary Arterials (2 or 4 lane, limited access), Secondary Arterials (2 lane, improved), and Collector (2 lane). Typically, the speed limit on an Expressway is 100 (soon to be 110 on the TCH-1), on Primary Arterials is 100 (except 80, 70 or 50 in speed zones), on Secondary Arterials is 100 (except 80, 70 or 50 in speed zones), and on Collector roads is 90 or 100, with lower speeds as necessary.
Several roads are also part of the National Highway System: PTH 1, 16, 29, 75, 100, and 101. This indicates the status of these roads as critical to the national and international road system.
Also of interest, perhaps, is that Manitoba, like Ontario, downloaded many of its highways in the early 1990s. However, to the best of my knowledge, this downloading consisted primarily of gravel-surfaced PRs. Hopefully I will be able to do some historical investigation and figure out some of the rerouting.
Enough of the preliminaries. I hope you will enjoy and find this site useful, whether simply for interest's sake, for route planning, or simply to explore this beautiful province I call home.
Thanks are due to Dan Miller of Manitoba Transporation and Government Services who responded to my request for a complete list of highways, to Ray Larabie for making a fine free highway-style font (Expressway Free) and to Darrin Smith for webhosting and encouragement.
Last updated September 14, 2007