A municipal expressway [1] in Ontario is a controlled-access highway maintained by an individual municipality rather than the provincial government. Municipal expressways are not a part of the Ontario Provincial Highway Network. Instead, they form parts of the different municipal road networks in Ontario.
The first expressway built under municipal jurisdiction was the Gardiner Expressway as a part of the expressway system proposed for Toronto by Metropolitan Toronto, followed by the Don Valley Parkway. The Gardiner did carry the provincial routing of Ontario Highway 2 until 1998, but was always locally owned and maintained.
Several highways were originally built and maintained by the province for decades before being downloaded to local authorities. The biggest transfers happening in 1997-1998, including the E. C. Row Expressway (then part of Ontario Highway 2), Ontario Highway 17 Queensway (which became Ottawa Road 174), Ontario Highway 2A, and the eastmost segment of the Queen Elizabeth Way. [2] [3]
In November 2023, the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario reached an agreement to upload the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, transferring responsibility for the maintenance of the highway to the provincial government. The deal freed up over CA$1.2 billion in the city's budget. [4] In March 2024, a similar deal was reached between the City of Ottawa and the Government of Ontario to upload Ottawa Road 174 to the provincial government as a part of a larger agreement. [5]
Municipal expressways have been seen as a substantial financial burden for the municipalities that have to operate and maintain them. [6] As a result, several municipalities have expressed interested for the responsibility of the highways to be uploaded to the provincial government. In 2014, the ideal of uploading Hamilton's two municipal expressways, the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and the Red Hill Valley Parkway. At the time, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario said there was no precedent for such an upload. [7]
Following the deal made between the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario to upload the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, several other municipalities also expressed interested in uploading their municipal expressways. The Hamilton's city council passed a motion to request that the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario take over the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and the Red Hill Valley Parkway. [6] The mayor of Windsor also asked the province about uploading the E. C. Row Expressway. [8]
King's Highway 401, commonly referred to as Highway 401 and also known by its official name as the Macdonald–Cartier Freeway or colloquially referred to as the four-oh-one, is a controlled-access 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It stretches 828 kilometres (514 mi) from Windsor in the west to the Ontario–Quebec border in the east. The part of Highway 401 that passes through Toronto is North America's busiest highway, and one of the widest. Together with Quebec Autoroute 20, it forms the road transportation backbone of the Quebec City–Windsor Corridor, along which over half of Canada's population resides. It is also a Core Route in the National Highway System of Canada. The route is maintained by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) and patrolled by the Ontario Provincial Police. The speed limit is 100 km/h (62 mph) throughout the majority of its length, with the remaining exceptions being the posted 80 km/h (50 mph) limit westbound in Windsor, in most construction zones, and the 110 km/h (68 mph) speed limit on the 40 km (25 mi) stretch between Windsor and Tilbury that was raised on April 22, 2022, the 7 km (4.3 mi) extension east of the aforementioned, the 35 km (22 mi) stretch between Highway 35 / 115 and Cobourg, the 44 km (27 mi) stretch between Colborne and Belleville, the 66 km (41 mi) stretch between Belleville and Kingston, and the 107 km (66 mi) stretch between Highway 16 and the east end of the highway that were raised on July 12, 2024.
The Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario linking Toronto with the Niagara Peninsula and Buffalo, New York. The highway begins at the Canada–United States border on the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and travels 139.1 kilometres (86.4 mi) around the western end of Lake Ontario, ending at Highway 427 as the physical highway continues as the Gardiner Expressway into downtown Toronto. The QEW is one of Ontario's busiest highways, with an average of close to 250,000 vehicles per day on some sections.
The Frederick G. Gardiner Expressway, commonly known as the Gardiner Expressway or simply the Gardiner, is a partially at grade and elevated municipal expressway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Running close to the shore of Lake Ontario, it extends from the foot of the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) in the east, just past the mouth of the Don River, to the junction of Highway 427 and the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) in the west, for a total length of 18.0 kilometres (11.2 mi). East of Dufferin Street to just east of the Don River, the roadway is elevated for a length of 6.8 kilometres (4.2 mi), unofficially making it the longest bridge in Ontario.
The Ontario Provincial Highway Network consists of all the roads in Ontario maintained by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO), including those designated as part of the King's Highway, secondary highways, and tertiary roads. Components of the system—comprising 16,900 kilometres (10,500 mi) of roads and 2,880 bridges —range in scale from Highway 401, the busiest highway in North America, to unpaved forestry and mining access roads. The longest highway is nearly 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) long, while the shortest is less than a kilometre. Some roads are unsigned highways, lacking signage to indicate their maintenance by the MTO; these may be remnants of highways that are still under provincial control whose designations were decommissioned, roadway segments left over from realignment projects, or proposed highway corridors.
The Don Valley Parkway (DVP) is a municipal expressway in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, which connects the Gardiner Expressway in downtown Toronto with Highway 401. North of Highway 401, it continues as Highway 404. The parkway runs through the parklands of the Don River valley, after which it is named. It has a maximum speed limit of 90 km/h (56 mph) for its entire length of 15.0 km (9.3 mi). It is six lanes for most of its length, with eight lanes north of York Mills Road and four lanes south of Eastern Avenue. As a municipal road, it is patrolled by the Toronto Police Service.
The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was an upper-tier level of municipal government in Ontario, Canada, from 1953 to 1998. It was made up of the old city of Toronto and numerous townships, towns and villages that surrounded Toronto, which were starting to urbanize rapidly after World War II. It was commonly referred to as "Metro Toronto" or "Metro".
Southern Ontario is a primary region of the Canadian province of Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada, with approximately 13.5 million people, approximately 36% of Canada's population of 37 million. The region lies south of the province's other primary region, Northern Ontario, although the exact northern boundary of Southern Ontario is disputed. However, its core region is situated south of Algonquin Park, the latter being in an area of transition between coniferous forest north of the French and Mattawa Rivers and southern deciduous forest. It covers between 14 and 15% of the province, depending on the inclusion of the Parry Sound and Muskoka districts which also lie in the transitional area between northern and southern forest regions. Southern Ontario differs greatly from Northern Ontario, having a much higher population density, a different climate, and a different culture than its northern counterpart. It is broken into smaller subregions, including Central Ontario, Eastern Ontario, the Golden Horseshoe, and Southwestern Ontario.
King's Highway 7, commonly referred to as Highway 7 and historically as the Northern Highway, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. At its peak, Highway 7 measured 716 km (445 mi) in length, stretching from Highway 40 east of Sarnia in Southwestern Ontario to Highway 17 west of Ottawa in Eastern Ontario. However, due in part to the construction of Highways 402 and 407, the province transferred the sections of Highway 7 west of London and through the Greater Toronto Area to county and regional jurisdiction. The highway is now 535.7 km (332.9 mi) long; the western segment begins at Highway 4 north of London and extends 154.1 km (95.8 mi) to Georgetown, while the eastern segment begins at Donald Cousens Parkway in Markham and extends 381.6 km (237.1 mi) to Highway 417 in Ottawa.
The E. C. Row Expressway is a municipal expressway in the city of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It divides the city in half as it crosses it between the Ojibway Parkway in the west and Banwell Road in the east, a distance of 15.4 kilometres (9.6 mi). It was built between 1971 and 1983, reaching completion across the city on June 9, 1983. It was part of Highway 2 and Highway 18 until the province transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor on April 1, 1997. In 2015, the westernmost 3 kilometres (1.9 mi) was significantly upgraded as part of the Highway 401 extension project. The freeway is named after Edgar Charles Row, the president of Chrysler Canada between 1951 and 1956.
King's Highway 2, commonly referred to as Highway 2, is the lowest-numbered provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario, and was originally part of a series of identically numbered highways which started in Windsor, stretched through Quebec and New Brunswick, and ended in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Prior to the 1990s, Highway 2 travelled through many of the major cities in Southern Ontario, including Windsor, Chatham, London, Brantford, Hamilton, Burlington, Mississauga, Toronto, Oshawa, Belleville, Kingston and Cornwall, and many other smaller towns and communities.
The cancelled expressways in Toronto were a planned series of expressways in Toronto, Ontario, Canada that were only partially built or cancelled due to public opposition. The system of expressways was intended to spur or handle growth in the suburbs of Toronto, but were opposed by citizens within the city of Toronto proper, citing the demolition of homes and park lands, air pollution, noise and the high cost of construction. The Spadina Expressway, planned since the 1940s, was cancelled in 1971 after being only partially constructed. After the Spadina cancellation, other expressway plans, intended to create a 'ring' around the central core, were abandoned.
Highway 2A is a municipal expressway in Toronto. Previously, King's Highway 2A was the designation of five separate provincially maintained highways in the Canadian province of Ontario, including the Toronto section. Highway 2A was an alternate route to Highway 2 in Chatham, London and Cornwall; these routes were all eventually redesignated. Highway 2A was also a highway that extended from Windsor to Tilbury, which was redesignated as Highway 98 in 1938.
The Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, nicknamed The Linc, is a municipal expressway in the city of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, which connects Highway 403 with the Red Hill Valley Parkway, which continues north to the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW). Collectively, the two expressways form a southern and eastern bypass of Hamilton. Located on the Hamilton mountain, atop the Niagara Escarpment, the freeway was named after the former Progressive Conservative MP and first black Lieutenant Governor of Ontario, Lincoln Alexander in July 1997, despite him never holding a driver's license.
The Red Hill Valley Parkway (RHVP) is a municipal expressway in the Canadian city of Hamilton, Ontario. The route connects the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, Hamilton's second municipal expressway, to the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) near Hamilton Harbour. It is named after Red Hill Valley, through which it descends the Niagara Escarpment. It is a 7-kilometre (4.3 mi) four-lane freeway with a speed limit of 80 kilometres per hour (50 mph).
King's Highway 8, commonly referred to as Highway 8, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The 159.7-kilometre (99.2 mi) route travels from Highway 21 in Goderich, on the shores of Lake Huron, to Highway 5 in the outskirts of Hamilton near Lake Ontario. Before the 1970s, it continued east through Hamilton and along the edge of the Niagara Escarpment to the American border at the Whirlpool Bridge in Niagara Falls. However, the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) replaced the role of Highway 8 between those two cities, and the highway was subsequently transferred from the province to the newly formed Regional Municipality of Niagara in 1970. In 1998, the remaining portion east of Peters Corners was transferred to the city of Hamilton.
Ottawa Road 174, formerly Ottawa-Carleton Regional Road 174 and commonly referred to as Highway 174, is a municipal expressway and numbered road in the City of Ottawa which serves the eastern suburbs of Orléans and Cumberland. The four-lane freeway segment between Highway 417/Aviation Parkway junction to Trim Road is also known as the Queensway, in addition the Queensway name continues to be applied to Highway 417 west of that intersection. Although the road continues through the towns of Rockland and Hawkesbury to the Quebec border, the portion east of the Ottawa city boundary is known as Prescott and Russell County Road 17.
COMPASS, also referred to as Freeway Traffic Management System, is a system run by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) to monitor and manage the flow of traffic on various roads in Ontario.
Stephen Christopher Leonard Blais is a Canadian politician who has served as the member of Provincial Parliament (MPP) for Orléans since February 27, 2020.