FREDERICTON, New Brunswick — People will pay to drive on a new four-lane highway to be built between Fredericton and Moncton.

The New Brunswick government announced Friday the one-way toll for passenger cars will be $7 for the 117-mile trip, while big trucks will pay as much as $27.

Premier Frank McKenna made no apologies for instituting another levy on New Brunswick residents who already pay among the highest taxes in Canada.

New Brunswick motorists also have been hit with a 20-cent-per-gallon increase in gasoline prices thanks to the new blended sales tax. Regular gas is about 2.60 per gallon.

McKenna said the four-lane road will be built through a private-public partnership and will be ready by 2001.

McKenna said the object is to get the new highway built as quickly as possible because the old and rutted two-lane Trans-Canada Highway is dangerous.

“Those of you who have any doubts about the importance of this project simply have to look at some of the horrendous accidents we’ve had on that stretch of highway,” he said.

“It’s so important to do this quickly. We cannot wait another 15 or 20 years. We just cannot allow the citizens of New Brunswick to be exposed to that danger and we can’t allow our whole system of commerce to be so effectively slowed down.”

Truck traffic in Atlantic Canada has increased dramatically in recent years with the demise of rail service in most of New Brunswick, parts of Nova Scotia and all of Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland.

New Brunswick is the gateway to Atlantic Canada, and its narrow, winding roads — as well as its resident drivers — have been punished by the influx of big rigs.

New Brunswick is the second province in Atlantic Canada planning to end the free ride on its roads.

Nova Scotia will open its first toll road in December — a 14-mile stretch of the Trans-Canada Highway that will bypass the dangerous hills and curves of the Wentworth Valley.

That toll road will cost motorists $3 and truckers $10 per trip.