DCHP-3

autoroute

DCHP-2 (Sep 2016)

Spelling variants:
Autoroute

n. — Quebec, Automotive

an expressway; a freeway (see Image 1).

Type: 1. Origin — Autoroute is used to refer to expressways in Quebec and other French-speaking areas (for the latter, see, e.g. the 2012 quotation). The term has entered Canadian English in some regions as a loan from Canadian French.
See also Gage-3, s.v. "autoroute", ITP Nelson, s.v. "autoroute", which is described as being used "in Quebec and French-speaking countries", and AHD-5, s.v. "autoroute".

Quotations

1957
Farmer Ouelette is only one of 400 landowners north of Montreal whose property would be affected by the highway route. Some 35 expropriators of the Montreal-Laurentian autoroute board currently are touring the area.
1960
The Autoroute and the Metropolitan Boulevard are the beginning of a new era in the Quebec road system. Yet they bring special problems to motorists, the greatest problem being the increased danger of serious accidents causing severe injuries and fatalities.
1972
Traffic on both the north and southbound lanes of the autoroute was rerouted for nearly three hours while Montreal firemen battled the fierce blaze which melted the asphalt and sent thick, black smoke billowing over the city.
1985
Bourassa said last week while in Hull that resuming construction on Hwy. 5, an autoroute to replace part of Hwy. 105, would be a provincial priority and could be easily accomplished with the federal-provincial agreement which sees both side pay 50 per cent.
1998
The autoroute bends to follow the St. Lawrence shore to Champlain Bridge, and I see the first beautiful thing since the border: the silver steeple of a church in La Prairie. It dazzles in the crisp autumn light, and because I need something beautiful to welcome me to a place I used to call home, I pull off the highway.
2012
What is today referred to as West Main used to be simply known as part of the Salisbury Road once you got west of Givan Drive. The road itself, once the autoroute to Saint John and beyond before the building of the Trans-Canada Highway, dates back much further.
2015
Separated from the autoroute by an old farmer's road, a large, heavily greened natural berm sound barrier and a broad tree line, stand inside a townhouse a block from the highway in even these early construction phases and one is hard-pressed to hear traffic.

References

  • AHD-5
  • Gage-3
  • ITP Nelson

Images

Image 1: An <i>autoroute</i> in Quebec. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Vintotal

Image 1: An autoroute in Quebec. Source: Wikimedia Commons. Photo: Vintotal