Ontario Highway 17 - Route Description - Sudbury To Arnprior

Sudbury To Arnprior

Highway 17 passes to the south of the urban centre of Sudbury. It meets Highway 69 at an interchange; with the conversion of Highway 69 to Highway 400 underway, through-traffic will be transferred to a new interchange several kilometres further north, while the existing alignment of Highway 69 will become an extension of Municipal Road 46. At this interchange, the Southwest and Southeast Bypasses meet, and for just over a kilometre, Highway 17 is a divided four-laned freeway.

The Super 2 continues northeast to meet the original alignment of Highway 17 east of downtown Sudbury. Here it turns east and travels through the city's outlying neighbourhoods of Coniston and Wahnapitae; a new freeway alignment of this route is currently in the planning stages.

The highway route passes through the rural municipalities of Markstay-Warren and West Nipissing before reaching North Bay, where it follows an undivided four-lane expressway alignment, with reduced but not full control of access, through the city of North Bay; as of 2012, early preparations have taken place for a freeway conversion and realignment of this segment. For 4.1 kilometres from Algonquin Avenue to the Twin Lakes area, the route is once again concurrent with Highway 11. At the northern end of this concurrency, Highway 11 travels north and wraps westward and south to Nipigon; at the southern end, it continues southward towards Toronto, while Highway 17 turns east toward the Ottawa Valley. An at-grade intersection with Highway 63 is located at approximately the midpoint of the concurrency.

East of North Bay, Highway 17 meets Highway 94, the last connection into southern Ontario for nearly 200 km (120 mi), thereafter travelling alongside the Mattawa River to its confluence with the Ottawa River in Mattawa, where drivers must turn at a junction with Highway 533. The highway then parallels the Ottawa River through a mountainous region, first passing through the villages of Stonecliffe and Rolphton before arriving in Deep River, a planned community developed as part of the Manhattan Project. It then passes through Chalk River and enters Canadian Forces Base Petawawa.

Beginning at the southern end of the army base, Highway 17 follows the Pembroke Bypass, bypassing west of Petawawa and Pembroke, where it intersects Highway 41. The bypass ends at Renfrew County Road 40, north of Muskrat Lake. The highway then travels south through the town of Cobden. It follows a bypass east of Renfrew and meets Highway 60. Highway 17 curves east and travels towards Arnprior, which the highway bypasses south of. After crossing the Madawaska River, the highway divides and widens to four lanes, at which point Highway 17 ends and Highway 417 begins.