Nova Scotia Highway 104

Highway 104
Route Transcanadienne
Miners Memorial Highway Trans-Canada Highway
Highway 104 highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by Nova Scotia Department of Public Works
Length	319.4 km (198.5 mi)
Existed	1964–present
Trans-Canada Highway segment
Length	274.1 km (170.3 mi)
West end	Route 2 (TCH) at the New Brunswick border
Major intersections	Trunk 2 at Fort Lawrence Trunk 2 / Trunk 6 at Amherst Hwy 142 near Springhill Trunk 4 near Thomson Station Trunk 4 at Glenholme Hwy 102 near Truro Hwy 106 (TCH) near New Glasgow Trunk 7 at Antigonish Trunk 4 / Trunk 16 at Monastery Trunk 4 at Aulds Cove
East end	Hwy 105 (TCH) / Trunk 4 / Trunk 19 at Port Hastings
Cape Breton segment
Length	37.3 km (23.2 mi)
West end	Trunk 4 near Port Hawkesbury
East end	Trunk 4 near St. Peter's
Location
Country	Canada
Province	Nova Scotia
Highway system
Trans-Canada Highway Provincial highways in Nova Scotia 100-series
← Hwy 103 → Hwy 105 (TCH)

Highway 104 in Nova Scotia, Canada, runs from Fort Lawrence at the New Brunswick border near Amherst to River Tillard near St. Peter's. Except for the portion on Cape Breton Island between Port Hawkesbury and St. Peter's, it forms the main route of the Trans-Canada Highway across the province.

Highway 104 mostly supplants the former route of Trunk 4. In 1970, all sections of Trunk 4 west of New Glasgow were renumbered, although parts of that highway was restored in later years along bypassed sections as new alignments of Highway 104 opened to traffic.

The provincial government named the highway the Miners Memorial Highway on 8 September 2008, one month before the 50th anniversary of the Springhill mining disaster of 23 October 1958.

Route description

View of Cobequid Pass, toll section of Highway 104 through Colchester County.

Highway 104 outside Westville, Nova Scotia (Exit 21).

The highway's present alignment measures 319 kilometres (198 mi) long, of which the western 232 kilometres (144 mi) between the inter-provincial border with New Brunswick at Fort Lawrence to east of Lower South River is a four-lane divided freeway. The eastern 92 kilometres (57 mi) from Lower South River to River Tillard is a mixture of two-lane controlled access highway (known as a Super 2), and uncontrolled access two-lane highway.

Highway 104 is divided into two distinct sections; the Trans-Canada Highway section that runs from the New Brunswick border to Port Hastings, and a smaller section on Cape Breton Island that runs between Port Hawkesbury and St. Peter's.

Trans-Canada Highway section

From the inter-provincial border at Fort Lawrence to Lower South River near Antigonish, Highway 104 is a four-lane divided freeway with posted speed limit of 110 kilometres per hour (70 mph) and runs east for 48 kilometres (30 mi) past the towns of Amherst and Oxford to Thomson Station. This section had been built in the 1960s as a Super 2 and was upgraded to a four-lane divided freeway that opened in 1993. From Thomson Station the highway runs southeast for 45 kilometres (28 mi) to Masstown, this segment is a tolled section; the Cobequid Pass, which opened on 15 November 1997. From Masstown, the highway runs east and northeast for 14 kilometres (8.7 mi) to the rural community of Onslow, near Truro, and intersects Highway 102, the main four-lane divided freeway connecting the Trans-Canada Highway with Halifax and southern Nova Scotia.

Highway 104 continues for 55 kilometres (34 mi), past Westville, to Highway 106, a branch of the Trans-Canada Highway that connects to Prince Edward Island via ferry. The highway continues east for 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to Stellarton and New Glasgow, with the highway passing through Stellarton; however, New Glasgow is located just to the north of the highway. The highway continues to Sutherlands River, which was the eastern end of the freeway segment until July 25, 2023.

East of Sutherlands River, Highway 104 runs east for 17 kilometres (11 mi) to Barney's River Station, and was built between 1964 and 1965 as a Super 2 and twinned between 2020 and 2023. East of Barney's River Station, the highway continues for 10 kilometres (6 mi) to James River, which opened as a new freeway on May 18, 2023. This segment bypasses a 12-kilometre (7.5 mi) two-lane, uncontrolled-access highway segment, which was formerly part of and is now once again part of Trunk 4. Past James River, the highway continues east for 12 kilometres (7 mi) to Addington Forks where the highway runs east for 11 kilometres (6.8 mi) to South River Road, along a freeway alignment that opened on September 19, 2012. Prior to this new alignment opening, Highway 104 ran east on the present alignment of Trunk 4 and Post Road in the town of Antigonish and included three intersections controlled by traffic lights. The highway continues from South River Road as a freeway, which opened October 22, 2016, for 7 kilometres (4.3 mi) to Dagger Woods. Prior to this new alignment opening, this section was an uncontrolled two-lane highway (formerly Trunk 4). As of 2026, work is underway to twin the highway east to the Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation.

From the end of the freeway section at Highway 316, the highway runs east for 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) to Pomquet Forks as a Super 2 and remains as a controlled access highway, although there are several at-grade intersections. East of Pomquet Forks, the highway runs east for 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) to Heatherton as an uncontrolled access highway (formerly Trunk 4) and speed limit reduces 90 kilometres per hour (55 mph). Past Heatherton, the highway runs east for 29 kilometres (18 mi) to Auld's Cove and speed limit increased back to 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph). At Auld's Cove, the highway becomes an uncontrolled access highway with a posted speed limit of 70 kilometres per hour (45 mph) and begins a concurrency with Trunk 4. It crosses the Strait of Canso along the 1.4-kilometre (1,400-metre; 0.87-mile) Canso Causeway to Port Hastings on Cape Breton Island. At Port Hastings, the highway intersects Trunk 4, Trunk 19 and Highway 105 at a roundabout where Highway 105 proceeds east carrying the Trans-Canada Highway designation.

Cape Breton Island section

From the roundabout at Port Hastings, there is an 8-kilometre (5.0 mi) gap in Highway 104, which is connected by Trunk 4, passing the town of Port Hawkesbury. The highway reappears at the Exit 43 interchange for Trunk 4 in Melville, just outside of Port Hawkesbury. A Highway 104 bypass from Port Hastings to Melville has been proposed in the past. Concept designs have shown a new alignment of 4-lane freeway being built around the northwest side of Port Hastings, crossing Highway 105 at a new interchange near an electrical substation. The new alignment of Highway 104 would proceed east and then southeast approximately following a power line corridor to the Exit 43 interchange in Melville.

From Port Hawkesbury, the highway runs east as a controlled-access super-2 for 34 kilometres (21 mi) to its current eastern terminus at an at-grade intersection with Trunk 4 in River Tillard, near St. Peters. An extension of Highway 104 from River Tillard to Sydney River has been proposed in the past. The Nova Scotia provincial government has designated the entire length of Highway 104 from Fort Lawrence to River Tillard as a "strategic highway" to qualify for federal cost-sharing of maintenance and future upgrades. This designation has also been applied to the remaining Trunk 4 corridor in Cape Breton along the south shore of Bras d'Or Lake from St. Peters to Sydney River. It is eventually envisioned that the Trans-Canada Highway will follow the entire length of Highway 104 from Amherst to Sydney River as a 4-lane freeway, upgraded from the existing two-lane freeway and uncontrolled access sections of the highway.

History

Highway 104 was constructed to replace Trunk 4, which originally began at the New Brunswick border in Fort Lawrence. When the Trans-Canada Highway system was established, Trunk 4 was its designated main route across mainland Nova Scotia. When controlled-access sections of Highway 104 were first built in the 1960s, initially as Super 2's, the number and the Trans-Canada routing replaced Trunk 4 entirely west of New Glasgow after 1970, although much of that highway's central segments west of there were restored in subsequent years after new alignments of Highway 104 opened, with later bypassed sections being retained after new freeway construction.

Upgrading to freeway

The western portion of the highway was upgraded to the present four-lane freeway in stages: The first parts were reconstucted (mostly by twinning) in three separate sections from the New Brunswick border to Thomson Station (KM 0 to 49), from Masstown to Salt Springs (KM 92 to 146), and from Westville Road to Plymouth (KM 159 to 166) and were completed by the early 1990s.

The freeway gap between Thomson Station and Masstown (KM 49 to 92) was closed when the tolled Cobequid Pass section (built on a new alignment) opened on November 15, 1997, with the gap from Salt Springs to Westville Road (KM 146 to 159) being closed when a freeway segment built on a new alignment opened at about the same timeframe.

In the 21st Century, the freeway was extended eastwards when the sections from Plymouth to Pine Tree (KM 166 to 174) and from Pine Tree to Sutherlands River (KM 174 to 177) were twinned and opened in 2011 and 2012 repectively. On September 19, 2012, a separate freeway section was opened from Addington Forks to South River Road (KM 219 to 228) to bypass Antigonish, where there were three signalized intersections along the previous alignment. This section was extended east a short distance to KM 232 near Dagger Woods and opened on October 22, 2016.

The final section to complete the present length of freeway was the gap between Sutherlands River to Addington Forks (KM 177 to 219), which had a staggered opening between May 18 (when a 10 km (6 mi) stretch opened from Barney's River Station to James River) and July 25, 2023, when the adjacent sections opened.

Two freeway rest areas opened near kilometre marker 71 (one for each direction) just east of the Cobequid Pass toll station in 2025. Both feature washrooms and sitting-out areas, and are the only such facilities along the highway.

As of 2026, the aforementioned work to twin the highway east to the Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation is underway.

Future

The province of Nova Scotia has proposed construction of a new 84-kilometre (52 mi) 2 lane arterial from the current end of Highway 104 at St. Peter's to Highway 125 at Sydney. This highway would travel mostly east of the current Trunk 4 and open as a Super 2. It would serve as a bypass of Trunk 4 and likely take designation of the Trans Canada Highway rather than Highway 105. When completed, this would provide nearly continuous controlled access highway across Nova Scotia on the Trans Canada Highway. Construction costs are estimated to be approximately $500 million and tolls have been proposed in the past. This project is currently not on the province's 5-year highway plan.

Exit list

County	Location	km	mi	Exit	Destinations	Notes
Missaguash River		0.0	0.0	—	Route 2 (TCH) west – Moncton	Continuation into New Brunswick
				Missaguash River Bridge
Cumberland	Fort Lawrence	0.7	0.43	1	Trunk 2 east (Laplanche Street) to Trunk 6 – Amherst, Fort Lawrence	Eastbound signed as Exit 1A
	Amherst	5.2	3.2	3	Trunk 6 east (Victoria Street, Sunrise Trail) – Amherst, Tatamagouche
		8.7	5.4	4	Trunk 2 (South Albion Street) – Amherst, Springhill, Parrsboro
	​	29.4	18.3	5	Hwy 142 south – Springhill, Parrsboro
	Oxford	39.7	24.7	6	Route 321 to Route 204 – Oxford, Pugwash, River Philip
	​	48.5	30.1	7	Trunk 4 – Mahoneys Corner, Wentworth, Folly Lake	West end of Cobequid Pass tolled section
		59.2	36.8	8	Wentworth-Collingwood Road to Trunk 4 – Westchester Station, Collingwood
Colchester	​	72.6	45.1	Cobequid Pass Toll Plaza
		83.3	51.8	10	To Trunk 2 / Trunk 4 – Great Village, Bass River, Londonderry	East end of Cobequid Pass tolled section
		89.0	55.3	11	Trunk 4 to Trunk 2 – Glenholme, Economy, Five Islands, Folly Lake, Wentworth
	Masstown	92.4	57.4	12	Trunk 2 / Trunk 4 – Masstown, Glenholme, Lower Debert
	​	97.6	60.6	13	Debert, Lower Onslow
	Onslow	106.3	66.1	15	Hwy 102 south – Truro, Halifax, Halifax International Airport	Hwy 102 exit 15
	Valley	115.6	71.8	17	To Route 311 / Trunk 4 – Bible Hill, Truro, Tatamagouche	Eastbound exit, westbound entrance
		116.2	72.2	17	To Route 311 / Trunk 4 – Bible Hill, Truro, Tatamagouche	Westbound exit, eastbound entrance
	​	125.5	78.0	18	Stevens Cross Road – Kemptown, Riversdale
Pictou	​	132.7	82.5	18A	Trunk 4 – Mount Thom
	Salt Springs	146.3	90.9	19	To Trunk 4 / Route 376 – Salt Springs, Central West River, Durham
	​	154.9	96.3	20	To Trunk 4 – Pleasant Valley, Greenhill, Union Centre
	Westville	159.2	98.9	21	Trunk 4 to Route 289 / Cowan Street – Alma, Westville
	​	160.8	99.9	22	Hwy 106 (TCH) north – Pictou, P.E.I. Ferry	Hwy 106 exit 1
	New Glasgow, Stellarton	163.8	101.8	23	Route 289 / Route 4 – New Glasgow, Westville, Trenton
		165.0	102.5	24	Route 374 – New Glasgow, Stellarton, Trenton, Sheet Harbour
		165.7	103.0	Crosses the East River of Pictou
		166.2	103.3	25	Route 348 (East River Road) – New Glasgow, Stellarton, Trenton
	​	169.8	105.5	26	Route 347 to Trunk 4 – Thorburn, Sherbrooke
	Sutherlands River	177.2	110.1	27	Trunk 4 / Route 245 north – Merigomish, Pine Tree, Little Harbour
	Broadway	189.6	117.8	28	Trunk 4 – Broadway, Kenzieville, French River	Eastbound exit, westbound entrance
	Barney's River Station	195.9	121.7	29	Trunk 4 – Kenzieville, Barney's River Station
Antigonish	James River	209.5	130.2	30	Beaver Mountain Road to Trunk 4 – James River, Marshy Hope
	Addington Forks	218.7	135.9	31	Trunk 4 – Addington Forks, James River, Brierly Brook
	Antigonish	221.0	137.3	32	Trunk 7 to Trunk 4 / Route 337 / Route 245 – Antigonish, Eastern Shore, Sherbrooke, Sheet Harbour, Musquodoboit Harbour, Porters Lake, Preston, Dartmouth, Halifax, Bedford
		223.4	138.8	33	To Trunk 4 – Antigonish, Beech Hill
	Lower South River	228.9	142.2	35	To Trunk 4 / Route 316 – Lower South River, Pomquet, Taylors Road
	​	232.0	144.2	End of divided freeway
	​	236.1	146.7	35B	Pomquet Monks Head Road, Pomquet River Road – Pomquet, St. Andrews	At-grade; proposed intersection closure
	Heatherton	238.1	147.9	36	Summerside Road	At-grade; proposed interchange in a new location
		239.3	148.7	36A	Trunk 4 east – Afton, Tracadie	At-grade; proposed intersection closure
		242.5	150.7	36B	Afton Road north to Trunk 4 – Paqtnkek Mi’kmaw Nation, Afton, Tracadie	Bayside Travel Centre located at interchange
	Monastery	251.1	156.0	37	Trunk 4 to Trunk 16 south – Monastery, Guysborough, Tracadie
	​	261.2	162.3	38	To Trunk 4 – Havre Boucher, Frankville	Eastbound exit, westbound entrance
		262.5	163.1	38	To Trunk 4 – Havre Boucher, Frankville	Westbound exit, eastbound entrance
	Aulds Cove	269.4	167.4	39	Trunk 4 west – Havre Boucher	West end of Trunk 4 overlap; at-grade
		270.7	168.2	40	Route 344 south – Mulgrave, St. Francis Harbour	At-grade
Strait of Canso		272.0– 273.4	169.0– 169.9	Canso Causeway
Inverness	Port Hastings	274.1	170.3	41	Hwy 105 (TCH) east – Chéticamp, Baddeck, Sydney Trunk 4 east to Hwy 104 (Fleur-de-lis Trail) – Port Hawkesbury, St. Peter's, Sydney Trunk 19 north (Ceilidh Trail) – Inverness, Port Hood, Margaree Forks	Roundabout; Hwy 105 exit 1; Trans-Canada Highway follows Hwy 105 east
7.9-kilometre (4.9 mi) gap in Hwy 104
Inverness	Port Hawkesbury	282.1	175.3	43	Trunk 4 – Cleveland, Lower River Inhabitants, Canso Causeway	Signed as Hwy 104
Richmond	Lower River Inhabitants	291.8	181.3	44	Cleveland, Lower River Inhabitants, Port Malcolm	At-grade
	Evanston	293.6	182.4	45	Evanston, Whiteside	At-grade
	Louisdale	304.7	189.3	46	To Route 320 / Route 206 – Louisdale, Arichat, Grande Anse
	Cannes	315.2	195.9	47	Sporting Mountain Road – River Bourgeois, Cannes
	River Tillard	319.4	198.5	48	Trunk 4 – River Bourgeois, St. Peter's, Sydney	Eastern terminus (at-grade); through traffic follows Trunk 4 east
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Concurrency terminus       Incomplete access        Tolled       Route transition Note: Exit numbers in Nova Scotia are sequential.

References

Template:Attached KML/Nova Scotia Highway 104

KML is from Wikidata