(no subject)

I spoke with my sister today. She is an engineer and deals with toxic waste cleanup. She works for a gas company and most of the cleanup is old gas company sites.

She isn't very impressed with the engineering company that is managing the cleanup of "her" current site. They got back the anlaysis of how much gasoline was in some soil, which had a faint odour of gasoline. Usually results are in parts per million. But for volatiles, the results are in parts per billion. One of the engineers (from the company that doesn't impress my sister) told her that the result was "250,000 parts per million". My sister corrected him to 250,000 parts per billion. He, however, was sure it was parts per million, but he would go back to the trailer and check. Even my elderly mother figured out that at 250,000 parts per million, the soil would be wet. 250,000 parts per million is 25%, for goodness sakes.

More about Autoroute 55

So, I tried to find out more about that "limited access highway" that had intersections with country roads.

• Highway numbers from 1-99 are autoroutes (limited access highways).


• Even-numbered autoroutes run more or less parallel to the Saint Lawrence River


• Odd-numbered autoroutes run more or less perpendicular to the Saint Lawrence River


• Autoroute 55 has a name: Autoroute Transquébecoise


• The Autoroute Transquébecoise is mostly two lane.


• A different section of the Autoroute Transquébecoise is being widened to four lanes.


• That autoroutes don't have (with rare exceptions) level crossings (trains) or intersections.


• That unless there are signs to the contrary, the speed limit on an autoroute is minimum 60 kph and max 100 kph.

But, nowhere could I find out why this one was so much like a country highway.