Oswald Parent originally proposed construction of the A-50 in 1962. Eight years later, Quebec PremierJean-Jacques Bertrand announced plans for construction. It was originally envisioned that the A-50 would extend over 400 km from L'Isle-aux-Allumettes at the Ontario border through Saint-Jérôme and Joliette along the Route 148 and 158 corridors to Berthierville and a junction with the A-40. The primary purpose of the A-50 was to connect Ottawa and the Outaouais with Montréal–Mirabel International Airport. At the time, the Ottawa Macdonald-Cartier International Airport was not yet built, and the national capital lacked highway access to an international air hub. Mirabel's rapid decline as an air hub as well as the Quebec government's decision in the 1970s to impose a moratorium on new autoroute construction resulted in a significantly truncated route for the A-50. Plans for extending the A-50 west of Hull and east of the A-15/TCH were abandoned. The exit numbers, however, are based on that original projected length of the autoroute. Construction was completed in the fall of 2007 on the road that connects Highway 148 west of the Aylmer and Hull sectors to the A-50 at the Boulevard des Allumettières interchange. One short section of Route 158 around Joliette was originally signed as A-50 as well until the project was abandoned. In addition, west of the current terminus, a four-lane at-grade expressway continues as Route 148 into the Aylmer section of Gatineau; it may become part of A-50 in the future. A-50 is a four- to six-lane freeway through Gatineau up to Buckingham, the remainder is mostly a two-lane freeway. Many overpasses are built to accommodate a fully divided, four-lane highway in the future such that only one portion of the overpass is currently used. However, there have been demands for a four-lane highway for the new segment so it can be safer. The first two segments were built with only two lanes and a 2007 multi-fatality accident occurred on highway 148 near Buckingham, a section of highway that A-50 would bypass. Unusual for a limited-access highway, the A-50 contains two railwaycrossings at grade, both of the Quebec Gatineau Railway. The first crosses the QGRY Lachute Subdivision between exits 260 and 272, at, while the second crosses the QGRY St-Jerome Spur about 1 km west of exit 279, at. There has been some support to rename the highway Autoroute Maurice-Richard after historic Montreal Canadienshockey player Maurice Richard, but the Commission de toponymie du Québec chose to wait until the section between Buckingham and Notre-Dame-de-Bonsecours was finished before making a decision, and to date no renaming has happened.
Safety improvements
Following a series of fatal collisions in 2007, it was announced that centreline rumble strips would be installed in various no-passing zones along Autoroute 50. This is the first installation of its kind in Quebec and serves as a pilot project. The two at-grade intersections at km 281 and 283 were removed in 2016.
