I was struck by Mayor Rick Dumas’ recent comments to delegates at the Rural Ontario Municipal Association conference, reported in The Marathon Mercury, where he described Highways 11 and 17 as “essential lifelines for northern communities.” I agree with him entirely.

But I would like to add a further perspective—one that becomes more pressing with each passing year for many residents of Northwestern Ontario: what happens when those lifelines can no longer be navigated safely by personal vehicle?

Highways 11 and 17 are not optional routes for northern communities. They are the arteries through which medical care, supplies, family connections, and economic life flow. Anyone who has lived here through winter knows how vulnerable those lifelines can be, lake-effect snow, ice buildup, collisions, and prolonged closures are not rare events. They are predictable realities.

What concerns me is that our transportation planning still assumes that individuals will always be able to drive themselves.

I am 82 years old and live in Marathon. Since September, my wife and I have travelled to Thunder Bay an average of twice a month for medical appointments. That is a 600-kilometre round trip each time. Travel to Sault Ste. Marie for specialized care is even more demanding, over 800 kilometres and up to ten hours on the road, often in winter conditions.

At some point, soon for many of us, that kind of driving will no longer be safe or possible. This is not a failure of independence. It is a normal part of aging.

Canada’s population is aging rapidly, and northern communities feel this first and most sharply. When seniors can no longer drive, the question is not whether they still need health care, but how they are expected to reach it.

Recent experience underscores how fragile these transportation lifelines truly are. Last week, returning to Marathon from Thunder Bay, we encountered traffic backed up for approximately eight kilometres just west of Nipigon due to an accident in the westbound lane. Most of that traffic consisted of transport trucks. The collision had occurred at 2 a.m.; we came upon the backlog at noon. After a 30-minute stop in Nipigon, the highway remained closed to westbound traffic when we resumed our journey.

That single incident illustrates more than inconvenience. It shows how quickly a critical corridor can be severed—for residents, for patients, and for the movement of goods that northern communities rely upon. When a highway functions as the only option, a closure of hours, or days, has cascading consequences.

Public transportation options along these same corridors are extremely limited. Where bus service exists, schedules are infrequent, delays are common, and there are no secure, heated terminals in which to wait, conditions that make travel difficult even for younger passengers and potentially unsafe for older adults.

If Highways 11 and 17 are truly lifelines, and they are, then we must also ask what redundancy and resilience look like in an aging society. A lifeline that depends entirely on personal vehicles is a fragile one.

This is not about convenience. It is about dignity, safety, and access to essential services. We invest heavily in hospitals and regional health centres, but far less attention is given to the means by which people actually reach them—especially those who live several hours away.

Mayor Dumas is right to insist that northern highways matter. I would add that the conversation must now widen to include reliable, humane public transportation along those same corridors, particularly for medical travel.

A call for partnership

This is not a challenge that northern municipalities can solve on their own. If Highways 11 and 17 are national and provincial lifelines, then ensuring safe, reliable access along them must be a shared responsibility. Provincial leadership and investment are essential, working in partnership with northern communities, to develop transportation solutions that reflect the realities of distance, winter conditions, and an aging population.

The question before us is not whether we can afford to think differently about transportation in Northwestern Ontario. It is whether we can afford not to.