A life-saving taste of Sweden is coming to Highway 11 near North Bay and could eventually be seen elsewhere in Ontario.

A pilot project on a 14-kilometer stretch north of the city on Lake Nipissing will create North America’s first “2+1” highway – a unique three-lane design with a center passing lane that changes direction every few kilometers.

A median barrier will separate the northbound and southbound lanes, making it difficult for cars and trucks to cross. The change will address safety concerns by reducing the risk of head-on collisions.

“It eliminates unsafe crossings,” said Danny Whalen, president of the Federation of Northern Ontario Municipalities and a Temiskaming Shores councillor.

On single-lane stretches it would be impossible to pass, while on two-lane stretches motorists would be able to pass as they do on Highway 401, for example – given that the two lanes condense into one after a few kilometers, forcing drivers to return to a single file.

Whalen and others in the north have been pushing the province to try the design, which began in Sweden two decades ago and has spread widely across Europe, for about seven years.

Transport Minister Caroline Mulroney issued a request for proposals on Thursday from road design consultants and for environmental assessment work.

“This is an important next step in getting shovels in the ground,” she said in a statement.

Highway 11 begins in Toronto as Yonge Street before extending into northern Ontario, where traffic volumes – even on major thoroughfares – are often not high enough to justify the cost of widening to four lanes.

The new concept is doubly important given the challenges on the roads from November to April, said North Bay Mayor Al McDonald.

“Winter driving conditions can be difficult in Northern Ontario.”

A successful bidder will be announced next year, but Whalen said he doesn’t expect the pilot project to be complete until 2024. Mulroney’s office would not provide a cost estimate to avoid skewing the design-build phase of bidding.

Because the involved portion of Highway 11 is already three lanes, the work required to convert it to the “2 + 1” model will not be as difficult and involved as building it from the ground up, Whalen added.

He would like to see the concept spread to other busy highways in the north, and perhaps even in the south, once data is collected from the pilot stretch.

“This could be adapted to any highway in Ontario.”

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