Ontario Highway 11B (Tri-Town) History - The King's Highways of Ontario

The Highway 11B Business Route through Cobalt, Haileybury and New Liskeard was created in 1963, when the Tri-Town Bypass was opened to traffic. The old alignment of Highway 11 through the three downtown areas was renumbered as Highway 11B, while the Highway 11 designation was assigned to the new Tri-Town Bypass. The Tri-Town business route was 26.1 km in length, making it the longest business route ever designated in Ontario. The length of Highway 11B was drastically reduced by the highway downloading in 1997-1998. The sections of Highway 11B running through the incorporated town limits of Cobalt, Haileybury and New Liskeard were stripped of their King's Highway signs and became local municipal streets. It should be noted that the majority of the sections of Highway 11B that were affected were considered to be connecting links by MTO even before 1998. Only two short sections of Highway 11B were retained in the provincial highway system. The first section of Highway 11B runs from the south Highway 11 Junction to the western Cobalt limits. Highway 11B then resumes on the northern side of Cobalt and ends at the south limits of the new City of Temiskaming Shores. The northernmost 800 metres of Highway 11B at Dymond was also retained in the provincial highway system, but this section was renumbered as Highway 65 during a highway renumbering project which took place in May 2003. The surviving sections of Highway 11B total 7.1 km in length.