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Ontario's Highways

Started by un1, January 19, 2009, 03:21:49 PM

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un1

All of them from Highway 2 to Highway 7276
Let's start with the 400 series highways.




400 Series Highways

The 400-series highways are a network of controlled-access freeways throughout the southern portion of the province of Ontario, Canada, forming a special subset of the provincial highway system. They function similarly to the Interstate Highway network in the United States. Modern 400-series highways have high design standards, speed limits of 100 km/h (62.5 mph), and various collision avoidance and traffic management systems. 400-series highway design has set the precedent for a number of innovations used throughout North America, including the parclo interchange.

The province's baseline standard for the construction of a 400-series highway (or any controlled-access freeway in Ontario) is an average traffic count of 10,000 vehicles per day. However, other factors are considered as well. To promote economic development in a disadvantaged region (e.g. current construction extending Highway 400 to Northern Ontario), a 400-series highway may be built where the existing highway's traffic counts fall below 10,000. As well, for environmental, budgetary or community reasons, some proposed 400-series highways (e.g. the Highway 400 extension from 401 to the Gardiner Expressway canceled in the 1960s) have not been built, even where an existing highway's traffic counts exceed the standard.

Routes map:


400 Series Highways:


Future Proposals

A map showing all of the planned routes for the 400 series, the red ones are planned, the blue ones are completed.


Future 400 Series Highways:


That is all for the 400 series highways.
-un1
Moderator of the Canada and Off Topic boards.


Thunder Bay Expressway - Highway 61 and 11/17 Ontario - Thunder Bay, Ontario


un1

#1
Primary Provincial Highways

The Ontario Ministry of Transportation maintains the system of provincial highways in the Canadian province of Ontario.

Ontario has several distinct classes of highways (French voie publique): King's Highways, (which includes Controlled-access highways) and secondary highways, with individual highways referred to as "that part of the King's Highway known as No. xx," or simply "the King's Highway known as No. xx."  For the purposes of legal jurisdiction, however, the Highway Traffic Act deems that tertiary roads are also considered to be "King's Highways" (French route principale).

The term "the King's Highway", first adopted in place of "provincial highway" in 1930, has been deprecated since the 1990s, and the old signs were replaced circa 1993. Currently these highways are again designated "provincial highways" or "provincially maintained highways" by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. The Highway Traffic Act, amended as recently as 2006, still refers to them as "King's Highway". Both terms are sometimes used within the same regulation as the older term is phased out.

There is no route map.

Primary Provincial Highways:


I'll try to update this as often as I can, so that is all. Look out for more!
-un1
Moderator of the Canada and Off Topic boards.


Thunder Bay Expressway - Highway 61 and 11/17 Ontario - Thunder Bay, Ontario

un1

#2
Secondary Provincial Highways

Secondary highways exist in Northern Ontario (and used to exist in Central and Eastern Ontario) to connect towns and remote areas, often connecting small to large towns to major Kings Highways. These highways are currently numbered from 502 to 673. Secondary highway markers are trapezoid-shaped. On the face of the marker appear, in order from top to bottom, the Ontario coat of arms, the number of the highway, and the word "ONTARIO".

A few secondary highways remain gravel-surfaced, although most have been paved. The speed limit on nearly all of these routes is 80 km/h (50 mph), although Highway 655 is posted at 90 km/h (56 mph).

The Secondary Highway system was introduced in 1955 to service regions in Northern and Central Ontario. In Northern Ontario, where there is no county-level system of government to take over road maintenance, secondary highways are still in operation and serve a function analogous to that of a county road, while those in Southern Ontario have all been downloaded to the counties and rolled into the county road systems there. Only one secondary highway in the province, Highway 537 in Greater Sudbury, lays within a municipal jurisdiction which also has a county-equivalent road system – it is located in an area that was an unincorporated part of the Sudbury District until being annexed into the city in 2001.

There is no route map.

Secondary Provincial Highways:





Tertiary

Tertiary roads connect those regions in northern Ontario not served by secondary highways. Legally, "road" (French route) has the same meaning as highway. These roads are currently numbered 801 to 811, and are marked by a simple rectangular marker with rounded corners bearing the number of the highway and the word "ONTARIO".

Most of these roads are gravel-surfaced and low-standard. The speed limit on these routes is 80 km/h (50 mph), although design standards generally override such.

The Ministry of Transportation introduced the Tertiary Road system in 1962. These roads were mostly resource access roads generally built into the most remote areas in Northern Ontario. These roads were constructed in small numbers, and with one exception (Highway 802), do not end at a settlement. Most of these Tertiary Roads were later upgraded and rebuilt to Secondary Highway standards. At present, there are only six tertiary roads in Ontario. All are gravel roads, except for Hwy 802 and Hwy 805, which both have some paved sections.

No route map.

Tertiary Highways:


-un1
Moderator of the Canada and Off Topic boards.


Thunder Bay Expressway - Highway 61 and 11/17 Ontario - Thunder Bay, Ontario

un1

#3
County Roads

This is a list of County Numbered roads in Ontario. These roads are found only in Southern and Southwestern Ontario (with the lone exception being Greater Sudbury, which is in Northern Ontario), and are listed alphabetically by county, because more than one county can sometimes have the same county road number without connecting across county lines.

By their nature, all county roads in Ontario are numbered, unless noted. This page lists all of the county/district/regional roads by their respective county, district, or regional municipality.

Some counties have been merged in the past, and are known as "United Counties". They will be treated and named as one county.

The county road network has been present for many years, but has only been signed with the flowerpot logos since the early 1970s or 1980s (depending on the area). Previously, the roads simply had road names, such as "Essex Road 42" or "Kent County Road 14", and so on, but had no shields to designate them.

In addition to County Roads, many townships also have Concession roads and Township Roads, such as Colchester South Road 3, and Concession 8. These do not have shields (only names on signs and maps), aside from one exception: Former Highway 620. It was downloaded to the Peterborough and Hastings County governments, and in one section, the highway was downloaded further to Wollaston Township, Ontario (in Peterborough County), and is now signed as "Wollaston Township 620", with a municipal sign similar to an Ontario Tertiary Highway.

List of county's with lists of county roads:


7000 Series Highways

In addition to these three classes of highways, the Ministry of Transportation maintains other roads (Resource roads, Industrial roads) that are of strategic importance to the Ministry, but which are not important enough to be given any special marking. These roads are designated with 7000-series numbers for internal inventory purposes, though they are not publicly marked as such. These are frequently, but not always, former highway segments which lost their original highway designation but remain important as connecting routes to communities or other highways.

As a further note, some roads are designated as 7000-series highways but are discontinuous, connected by "non-assumed" roads (roads not under provincial control, such as county roads, or town streets), linking both parts that share the same number. Also, multiple MTO owned expressways have a 7,000 hidden designation.

There is no route map.

7,000 Series Highways:


There a complete list of every provincially maintained road in Ontario.
I will try to update this as new roads come up.

-un1
Moderator of the Canada and Off Topic boards.


Thunder Bay Expressway - Highway 61 and 11/17 Ontario - Thunder Bay, Ontario

haljackey

You can tell it was a cold one out there today.



Best,
-Haljackey

agentsteel53

how does one access the bookmark?  I assume it is a link of some sort, but it no clickey.

here is a great page on Ontario highways:

http://www.thekingshighway.ca/

any of these old-school markers left in the wild by any chance??

http://www.thekingshighway.ca/PHOTOS-3/hwy2-37_lg.jpg
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

haljackey

I got the pic from http://www.onthighways.com/

Excellent site for info and pics.

John

They came, they went, they took my image...

Voyager

Wow, great job on that guide. I had no idea Ontario actually had so many freeways.
Back From The Dead | AARoads Forum Original

shadowduck

Quote from: voyager on January 19, 2009, 10:13:38 PM
Wow, great job on that guide. I had no idea Ontario actually had so many freeways.

Not also does Ontario have many freeways (there are a few others non-400 series like the 115 and the 7) it also holds the record for the widest and busiest freeway in the world. The 401 through Toronto is up to 20 lanes wide and carries over 500,000 vehicles a day.

Chris

Actually the 500 k number is a SWADT (Summer Average Weekday Traffic) It should be noted that the AADT is lower. You need the AADT to compare with other freeways throughout the world. It's still the busiest though, the 401 has 426,000 and the next one's LA's I-405 with 390,000

haljackey

I believe the highest ever recorded number of cars traveling on the 401 was about 625,000 in a single day in a section of Toronto.  Pretty insane eh?  The AADTs are also impressive.

treichard

Will any of the 400-series freeway expansion be completed before 2009 is over? Got a timeline for any of the expansion?
Map your cumulative highway travel
Clinched Highway Mapping
http://cmap.m-plex.com/

un1

treichard: Not too sure, I'll check and see.

Ok, I'm done a new section on the first page.  :D
Moderator of the Canada and Off Topic boards.


Thunder Bay Expressway - Highway 61 and 11/17 Ontario - Thunder Bay, Ontario

haljackey

New page?  Time for a new picture!


agentsteel53

in what circumstances do they use blue guide signs instead of green?
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

vdeane

The signs on the collector lanes are blue and the signs on the express lanes are green.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position of NYSDOT or its affiliates.

haljackey

I'm pretty sure that green signs are for express lanes and for highways that don't have a C/E setup and blue signs are for collector lanes and for toll highways.

agentsteel53

very cool!  I remember the occasional blue guide sign on Montreal's autoroutes in the 80s.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

shadowduck

The most amazing thing about this- is the 401 was widened to 12 lanes in places in the 1970s! I don't think any highway in the US was even close to being that wide in the 1970s or maybe even the 1980s.

agentsteel53

really? when was I-75/85 widened?  I thought that one had been many lanes since forever.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

shadowduck

Quote from: agentsteel53 on January 20, 2009, 11:19:10 PM
really? when was I-75/85 widened?  I thought that one had been many lanes since forever.

It was widened in the late 80s.

agentsteel53

how many lanes wide is this?

(image just a bit too large to embed here... so here is a link)
http://www.texasfreeway.com/Houston/historic/photos/images/us59_trench_traffic_jam_1962.jpg

Houston, TX.
live from sunny San Diego.

http://shields.aaroads.com

jake@aaroads.com

haljackey

agentsteel53:  Well in that pic cars are in the inner and (probably) outer shoulder, so that makes only 4 lanes in width (or 8 each way).

Another interesting note is that the 401 went from a 4-lane rural highway bypass right into a 12+ lane beast right away!  No gradual widening here, it just tripled in size!  :P

Voyager

That interchange almost looks scarier than the I-5/405 junction in Orange County. 22 lanes wide!
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