Regional Boards > Canada
Quebec's Highways
Chris:
Freewaybrent made a nice video of A-73 in Quebec.
Watch it in HD:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wiPQgoTt84s
J N Winkler:
--- Quote from: SP Cook on February 05, 2010, 07:08:03 AM ---This is not a bilingual place. New Brunswick and the part of Ontario that is near Quebec is, but in Quebec the only bilingualism is in thing run by the federal government (post office, airports, etc). Things run by the province are French only.
--- End quote ---
Things may have changed significantly since I visited in 1998, but at that time there was a fair amount of bilingual signing in Montréal.
--- Quote ---You will need enough French to dope out road signs. Cardinal directions and such. Not hard, but it takes paying attention. And it is all in metric, which is more irritating to me than the French. Learning ones numbers, for value meal purposes, is good if you are going north of Quebec City.
--- End quote ---
There is also an insistence on translating business names into French which results in, e.g., KFC becoming PFK (KFC trades as KFC in France, if memory serves). Québec does try to use symbol signs whenever possible, and on MTQ infrastructure you shouldn't run across any yellow diamond warning signs which have text messages in French only. However, local authorities in Québec often place text-message warning signs in French only without MTQ approval ("LENTEMENT" = slow is a common legend) on local roads. Moreover, MTQ construction signs still use French-only text messages, so you need to know "TRAVAUX," "ROUTE BARRÉE," and some other legends.
Design details for traffic signs in Québec can be downloaded from the MTQ Signalisation site:
http://www.mtqsignalisation.mtq.gouv.qc.ca/
The signs themselves can be downloaded in EPS, DXF or AI formats (all vector), while the sign designs (labelled "devis") can be downloaded in PDF format with the sign illustrations rendered as rasters within the PDF files.
--- Quote ---The people are very friendly, but, IMHO, are more friendly if they know you are an American (and thus not expected to know French) than an Ontarian. They expect Ontarians to speak a little French. The language really is not a barrier until you get north of Quebec City, or away from the A routes.
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My perspective may be colored somewhat by being deaf and having to communicate in writing, but personally I never felt comfortable about using English anywhere in Québec outside Montréal.
--- Quote ---Roads are as described in Montreal and Quebec City. Kinda poor by US standards. In the more rural areas, it is similar to a US Interstate, but slightly different standards. Metric signage. No mention of other destinations outside Quebec, other than those in the USA (political thing). More of those euro-style pictograph signs for things like gasoline, hotel, etc. "Hotel de ville" on exit signs, which you see a lot, means "City Hall", not a hotel. I think they note that because its like saying "police station" in the USA.
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Not really--it is more like "Civic center" on US freeway guide signs. Hôtel in French is a fairly tricky word since in some contexts it can mean "House" in the occasional British sense of an office building, while in others it can refer to a lodging establishment. There are separate pictograms for the Sûreté du Québec (the provincial police force, equivalent in most respects to a state police agency in the US) and for local police.
agentsteel53:
I was just in Quebec and I did not see a single English sign. Everything was in French. There were a couple that were text-only in the yellow diamond (mainly on old alignments and town roads) but for the most part it was pictorial and therefore easy to understand.
I did note a US-201 trailblazer on Autoroute 73 heading south of Quebec City, about 120 miles away, which has to be the most distant indicator for a US route in existence!
Truvelo:
Ah yes, and for a second I thought it also contained an I-73 shield.
Picture here
J N Winkler:
--- Quote from: agentsteel53 on February 24, 2010, 12:41:20 PM ---I was just in Quebec and I did not see a single English sign. Everything was in French.
--- End quote ---
Not even "St James St/Rue St-Jacques" on an autoroute guide sign?
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