In Canada, as specified by the Constitution, transportation matters are left to the provinces. As a result, there are no national highway numbering systems, so each province has its own rules. There is one highway, the Trans-Canada Highway, that traverses the whole country from Victoria, BC, to St. John's, NF, but it doesn't carry the same provincial highway numbers for its length.

The original highway numbering system was initiated in the 1930s, and consisted of routes 1 to 19, with a few "A" roads. There appears to have been a very loose clustering system: 1 and 2 both met in Saint John, while routes 3 to 7 all came near the Maine border. Routes 8, 9, and 10 all met in the Fredericton area. NB 11 through 17 were in eastern New Brunswick, and routes 18 and 19 were in northwestern New Brunswick. The major county roads also got in the provincial numbering system, they were assigned sequentially -- between 20 and 42 by 1965.

In 1965 county governments were dissolved and all county-maintained routes were turned over to the province. Instead of just adding more roads to the original numbering system, the Department of Public Works (which was broken up into the Departments of Supply and Services, and Highways in 1968. NBDOH became NBDOT around 1975.) renumbered almost all highways, sparing only 1, part of 2, and most of 3, 4, 5, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16 and 17 from change.

The roads got numbers as high as 960 at the time and were divided into three classes:

• Primary Routes: Most numbers are holdovers from the original 1930s numbering system. There are only twelve: 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, and 95. Highways 2 and 16 form the New Brunswick legs of the TCH, and get special shields. There does not seem to be a formal numbering system for Primary roads.
• Collector Routes: Numbers of the form 1xx. These can be numbered in a few different ways: Putting a 1 in front of a former number for the road (106,113, 120, 132) or somewhat similar to a former number (144, 177). Others are numbered with what seems to be a loose clustering system: Fredericton has routes 101 through 105. 126, 128, 132, 133, 134 and 140 all enter Moncton or Shediac. When some new bypasses and freeways were built, or when local roads were renumbered some unused numbers were brought in out of the blue: 100, 121, 130 and 145 are examples. Routes 124 and 130, among others, do not seem to have an explanation for their numbers.
• Local Routes: Numbers between 200 and 970. These routes use a clustering system. The 200s can be found in the Edmundston or Campbellton areas. The low 300s are found around Bathurst, while the high 300s are located in the Perth-Andover and Plaster Rock areas. The low 400s are in the Miramichi region, whereas the high 400s and low 500s can be found on the central eastern shore. The high 500s are in the Woodstock and Florenceville regions. The 600s and very low 700s are in the Fredericton area, and the rest of the 700s are in the extreme southwest. The 800s are located in the Saint John -- Sussex corridor, and the 900s are in the southeast, including Moncton. There are exceptions, such as 490 reaching Moncton or 430 making its way to Bathurst.

The TCH is NF 1, with the provincial routes increasing from east to west until you get to the 400s. Then there are a few 5xx routes in Labrador.

There are 3 classes of highways in Nova Scotia:

• Trunk roads (single/double digit roads): Until the mid-1960s, all NS routes were trunk roads. There doesn't seem to be a concrete numbering plan, just that the lower-numbered routes are longer. There is also the Cabot Trail, a scenic drive on Cape Breton Island that is unnumbered, but regarded as a trunk road.
• Arterial Highways (numbered in the 100s): Partly divided, part Super 2, part 2-lane uncontrolled access. You never know what you're going to get! Anyway, the arterial highways are mostly numbered with the last two digits being the same as a paralleling trunk road or former trunk road (as is the case with NS 118.) NS 142 is numbered because it used to intersect a multiplex of NS 2 and 4. NS 111 and 162 seem to have come out of the blue. The first of these popped up in the late 1960s, shortly before the Great Renumbering of 1970.
• Collector roads: (2xx and 3xx): Some roads have the last 2 digits matching a pre-1970 trunk route.

The TCH is route 1. The next most important road, connecting Summerside and Charlottetown and a host of smaller communities is number 2. The numbers then go higher as they decrease in importance to 25 (with a few "A"s thrown in.) Then we get to the secondary routes. Not much of a hassle: the 1xx routes are in the western part, the 2xx's in the centre, and the 3xx's in the east.
 
 

The present numbering system in use in Quebec was introduced in the mid-70s. Before that, route numbers went from 1 to 65, except routes 68, 105A and 108 who were continuations of Vermont state routes (Actually, route 68 was connected to VT-78. Oops!) The lowest numbers were assigned to the main highways and the highest numbers had some kind of clustering.

Many of these numbers were probably given in the late 1920s as many of them are found back in a 1929 book, where QC 5, QC 7 and QC 9 were connected to US 5, US 7 and US 9, and still were when the geographical system was introduced.

The first Quebec freeway ("autoroute") was opened in 1958 and was followed by some others, but were not numbered until 1967. At that time, they were given numbers fitting a geographical plan inspired by the Interstate numbering plan: east-west highways got even numbers, north-south highways got odd numbers, and numbers increased from west to east and from south to north.

Already built freeways were given numbers like 10, 15, 20, 25, 30, 31, 40 - all numbers already used by older routes. In order to avoid confusion, the Quebec Ministry of Transportation decided in 1972 to renumber all routes, except the autoroutes. The new system introduced the following classes of routes:

• 1 to 99 - Autoroutes
• 100 to 199 - Main routes
• 200 to 399 - Secondary routes (200 to 299 are south of St. Lawrence River, and 300 to 399 are north of St. Lawrence River)
• 400 to 999 - Deviation freeways and spurs (even prefix = deviation freeway, like QC 640, odd prefix = spurs, like QC 720, and the last two digits are carried from the parent freeway)

Some violations:

• Route 201 (formerly route 3A) crosses the St. Lawrence River in Valleyfield and connects with routes 338, 340 and 342. It is the only secondary route to cross the St. Lawrence.
• Routes 213 and 215 are two tiny routes (both about 8km/5mi long) that are not at their proper position, as they veer from routes 237 and 139 respectively.
• The Abitibi region (in the northwest, where route 117 goes east-west to join the Ontario border - another fantasy) hosts north-south routes with 39x numbers that should belong in the eastern part of the province. (The Ministry of Transportation printed in its "Road distances" publication that it was made for "practical reasons").
• There are two secondary freeways bearing the number 440 (one in Laval, one in Quebec City) and two others numbered 540 (one in Quebec City, one linking highways 20 and 40 in Vaudreuil-Dorion), just like was done in the U. S. for I-76, I-84 and I-88.

Sources:

• Jean-Francois Lachance: National Canada and Quebec info
• J. P. Kirby: NB, NF, NS, and PEI

If you have information on how a province numbers its highways, don't hesitate to e-mail me.
 

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