Plans to bump up speed limits on the majority of Ontario’s major highways by the fall don’t appear to include well-travelled routes in Northwestern Ontario, but there doesn’t seem to be a consensus on making that move in any event.
“Speed limits on highways 11 and 17 are not being increased,” a spokesman for Conservative MPP Kevin Holland, who represents the Thunder Bay-Atikokan riding, said on Thursday.
“The highways (where) speed limits are being increased are outside Northern Ontario.”
Currently, the maximum speed on highways 11, 17 and 11-17 as they wind through Northwestern Ontario is 90 km/h, even in areas that have recently been upgraded to four lanes. That includes most of the 100-kilometre stretch between Thunder Bay and Nipigon.
Shuniah Mayor Wendy Landry, whose municipality contains a significant portion of the new four-lane sections of Highway 11-17, said she would be comfortable if limits on those divided sections were raised to 100 km/h.
Sections that remain two lanes should be kept at 90 km/h, Landry said.
“On the two lanes, I think we still have too many concerns about speeding,” she said.
Asked if he thought speed limits should be bumped-up on highway sections that have been upgraded to four lanes, Holland said any move to increase speed limits “must be guided by safety.”
“Once four-laning work is complete, the Ministry of Transportation would need to evaluate the corridor, including traffic patterns, access points, winter driving conditions, enforcement, and overall safety data, before any changes are considered,” Holland said in a statement.
NDP MPP Lise Vaugeois, who is opposed to raising the maximum speed on Highway 11-17, said she wondered why the province is focused on hiking speed limits when evidence from police and other agencies has long shown a relationship between excessive speed and fatal vehicle crashes.
“Surely the provincial government has more important things to do, and spend money on, than changing all the speed signs on our highways,” Vaugeois, who represents Thunder Bay-Superior North, said.
“Driving faster uses more gas and leads to more accidents. Statistical evidence proves these points.”
In a news release in late June, the province said that nearly 90 per cent of Ontario’s freeways would have speed limits of 110 km/h by the end of September. Currently, just over 40 per cent of major routes allow motorists to drive that fast.
“With this new speed limit in place, drivers travelling from Sarnia to Toronto could save nearly 20 minutes, while those travelling from Toronto to Ottawa could save nearly half an hour,” the news release said.
By Carl Clutchey, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Jul 10, 2026 at 10:00
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