New Brunswick Spring Weight Restrictions Map 2026

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How to use this tool

Type a route number or a road name into the search box and the map and the table filter together. If you haul on Route 102 between Fredericton and Oromocto, search 102 and you will see which parts of it are exempt and which are not, because a single route number is often split across several entries with different tiers.

The input people get wrong is the axle weight box. It wants the weight you are normally allowed under Regulation 2001 to 67 for your configuration, not the weight you happen to be carrying. Take the number from your registration. The tool then applies the reduction, which is the only part the notice actually changes.

The rule most people have backwards

Spring weight restrictions are usually described as a list of restricted roads. That is the wrong way round, and it is the mistake that costs people money. Item 5 of the notice says that on every highway in the province not named in items 3 and 4, axle weights drop to eighty percent. Restriction is the default state. The list is a list of exceptions.

So the question is never whether your road is on the restricted list. The question is whether it earned a place on the exempt list. The map makes that visible: 3,960 km of highway is exempt and 355 km runs at ninety percent, out of a provincial network many times that size. If your route is not painted, you are at eighty percent.

Why the thaw does this to a road

A frozen subgrade is enormously stiff. Ice cements the particles together and the road behaves like a slab, which is why winter is the strongest season for a gravel base. Thawing reverses that from the top down. Meltwater is trapped between the surface and the still frozen layer beneath, and because it cannot drain, it carries load as pore pressure instead of letting the soil skeleton do the work.

The result is a base course that can lose a large fraction of its stiffness for a few weeks, while looking completely normal from the cab. Damage in that window is not proportional to load either. Pavement fatigue goes roughly as the fourth power of axle weight, so an axle at full weight on a thawed base does not do a little more harm than one at eighty percent, it does roughly two and a half times as much. That fourth power relationship is why the reduction is set where it is.

A check you can repeat on paper

Take the tool's default of 9,100 kg on a single axle. On an exempt road you run the full 9,100 kg. On a ninety percent road you get 9,100 times 0.9, which is 8,190 kg. Everywhere else you get 9,100 times 0.8, which is 7,280 kg.

The per axle loss looks small at 1,820 kg. Across five axles it is 9,100 kg, and that is the number that matters, because it is most of a tenth load. On a haul that normally takes ten trips you are now looking at eleven or twelve. Run the same arithmetic before quoting spring work rather than after.

Now apply the fourth power rule to see it from the road's side. Dropping from 9,100 to 7,280 kg is a factor of 0.8 on load, and 0.8 to the fourth is 0.41. The reduction cuts the damage each axle pass does to roughly forty percent. That is the trade the notice is making.

How this map was built, and where it is soft

The notice is a Word document that describes roads in prose, for example "From Jct. Route 7 to Jct. Route 1 at Exit 112". There is no geometry in it. Each of those descriptions was parsed and then resolved against the New Brunswick Road Network published through GeoNB, matching route numbers, exit numbers, street names and distances along a route to produce real line work.

That worked for 166 of the 194 entries. The rest could not be placed automatically because the notice points at things a road network file does not contain: two named bridges, two United States border crossings, an airport, a maintenance depot, an industrial park entrance, an internal access road number, and a few lines with typographic errors in the source. Those are absent from the map rather than guessed at.

Of the 166 that did place, a number are drawn dashed and labelled flagged in the table. That means the endpoint matched with lower confidence, usually because a road crosses the same route more than once or because the road network returns that road in disconnected pieces. The segment is in roughly the right place, but the exact start or finish may be off. Treat a dashed segment as a prompt to read the notice, not as an answer.

Mistakes that catch people out

• Assuming a whole route shares one tier. Route 134 appears three times in the notice with different extents and different tiers. Check the segment, not the number.
• Forgetting the north and south split. Southern New Brunswick starts and ends earlier than the north. The two areas are defined by county in items 1 and 2, with several named roads moved deliberately from one to the other.
• Treating municipal streets as covered. The notice binds highways under the Minister's control. A city or village street outside that control is set by whoever maintains it, and you have to ask them.
• Reading the end date as fixed. The removal date is conditional on weather. It moves, and restrictions can also start earlier than announced.
• Misreading the permit position. Item 7 exempts passenger buses and some service vehicles, and item 7(d) exempts vehicles running under a special permit issued under section 36(12) of the Highway Act, so a permit route does exist. Item 9 is the separate point: no additional axle or vehicle weight is allotted beyond the prescribed limits while restrictions are in force. Ask DTI rather than assuming either way.

Common questions about New Brunswick road bans

When do the 2026 New Brunswick spring weight restrictions start and end?

Southern New Brunswick ran from 12:01 am on 9 March 2026 to 11:59 pm on 10 May 2026. Northern New Brunswick ran from 16 March to 17 May. Both areas are defined by county in items 1 and 2 of the notice, with a handful of named roads moved deliberately between them. The end date is conditional on weather, so it moves, and restrictions can also be imposed earlier than announced.

Which New Brunswick highways are exempt from spring weight restrictions?

Item 3 of the notice lists them. Routes 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, 10, 11, 15, 16, 17, 95, 110, 119, 127 and 160 are exempt along their whole length, and dozens of other routes and local roads are exempt only between stated junctions. That comes to roughly 3,960 km of road. The map above draws all of it, and the search box lets you check a specific route rather than assuming the whole number carries one tier.

How much payload do you lose during a road ban in New Brunswick?

Twenty percent of your axle weight on any road that is not listed, and ten percent on the roads named in item 4. On a 9,100 kg axle that is 1,820 kg lost per axle at the eighty percent tier, or 9,100 kg across five axles. That is most of a tenth load, which is why spring hauling quotes need to be recalculated rather than carried over from winter rates.

Do spring weight restrictions apply to city streets and county roads?

The notice binds highways under the control and jurisdiction of the Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure. A municipal street outside that control is set by whoever maintains it, and the only reliable answer is to phone that authority. This is the single biggest gap in every published source on the subject, including this one.

Are there exemptions for particular vehicles?

Item 7 exempts passenger buses, tow trucks at or returning from an accident scene, utility vehicles engaged in repair work, snow removal equipment while removing snow, and vehicles operating under a special permit issued under section 36(12) of the Highway Act. Item 9 separately states that no additional weight is allotted beyond the prescribed limits during the restriction period.

What happens if you are caught overweight during the thaw?

Item 8 says the vehicle is not permitted to proceed until every axle is within the prescribed limits, either by redistributing the load or by off loading onto another vehicle. Item 11 states that the restrictions are strictly enforced. The practical cost is the delay and the second vehicle, not only the fine.

Related Calculators and Reference

• New Brunswick County Map, useful here because items 1 and 2 of the notice define the northern and southern thaw areas by county.
• Mass and Weight Converter, for moving between kilograms, short tons and long tons when a shipper quotes in the other system.
• Unit Weight of Asphalt, to turn a tonnage limit into the volume of mix you can actually carry per load.
• Unit Weight of Gravel and Crushed Stone, the same conversion for aggregate hauls, which are the loads most affected by a spring reduction.
• New Brunswick Design Values and Geology, background on the soils that behave badly when they thaw.
• Government of New Brunswick spring weight restrictions, the official notice and the only version that governs.