Toronto-Hamilton Highway As automobile use in southern Ontario grew in the early 20th century, road design and construction advanced significantly. A major issue faced by planners was the improvement of the routes connecting Toronto and Hamilton, which were consistently overburdened by the growing traffic levels. Following frequent erosion of the former
macadamized
Lakeshore Road, a cement road known as the
Toronto–Hamilton Highway was proposed in January 1914. The highway was designed to run along the lake shore, instead of
Dundas Street to the north, because the numerous hills encountered along Dundas would have increased costs without improving accessibility. Middle Road, a dirt lane named because of its position between the two, was not considered since Lakeshore and Dundas were both overcrowded and in need of serious repairs. Construction began on November 8, 1914, but dragged on throughout the
ongoing war. It was formally opened on November 24, 1917, wide and nearly long. It was the first concrete road in Ontario, as well as one of the longest stretches of concrete road between two cities in the world. Though many minor improvements in alignment were made, the original highway was without modern bridges for the crossings of the Credit River and Bronte, Etobicoke, and Mimico Creeks. Modern concrete arch bridges for all crossings except Bronte Creek were completed in 1919.
The Middle Road in 1940. In 1974, the monument was removed to accommodate widening of the QEW. The monument was reinstalled nearby in 1975. Over the next decade, vehicle usage increased substantially, and by 1920 Lakeshore Road was again highly congested on weekends. In response, the Department of Highways examined improving another road between Toronto and Hamilton. The road was to be more than twice the width of Lakeshore Road at and would carry two lanes of traffic in either direction. Construction on what was then known as the
Queen Street Extension in
Etobicoke Township west of today's
Kipling Avenue (bypassing a northern jog in Queen Street) to connect with the eastern end of
The Middle Road across the
Etobicoke Creek began in early 1931 as a Great Depression relief project. Before the highway could be completed,
Thomas McQuesten was appointed the new minister of the Department of Highways, with Robert Melville Smith as deputy minister, following the
1934 provincial elections. Smith, inspired by the German autobahns—new "dual-lane
divided highways"—modified the design for Ontario roads, and McQuesten ordered that the Middle Road be converted into this new form of highway. A
right-of-way was purchased along the Middle Road and construction began to convert the existing sections to a divided highway. Work also began on Canada's first interchange at
Highway 10 (
Hurontario Street). By the end of 1937, the Middle Road was open between Toronto and Burlington. When it opened, it was the first intercity divided highway in North America and boasted the longest continuous stretch of illumination in the world until the Second World War.
The New Niagara Falls Highway and a new freeway approaching Toronto McQuesten also foresaw the financial opportunities that came with cross-border tourism and opening the "Ontario frontier" to Americans. In 1937, construction began on a new dual highway from Hamilton to Niagara Falls (first known as the
Hamilton-Niagara Falls Highway) along the bottom of the Niagara Escarpment. This route was intended to connect with the Middle Road on the opposing shore of Lake Ontario. Work began at the end of March to
grade the route between
Stoney Creek and
Jordan. The Hamilton-Niagara Falls Highway connected to the Middle Road via a trumpet junction known as the Burlington Interchange. The prospect of removing hundreds of acres of farmland did not sit well with many, especially farmers in the path of the new highway. Rumours spread the prices paid for land were to be well below market value, and local protests erupted throughout the summer. However, the purpose of the new highway was to replace the congested, winding and hilly route of
Highway 8 along the escarpment; several groups of collisions that summer gradually persuaded the public to support the new highway. By the autumn, of fruitland were cleared to make way for the route. Over the next two years, numerous bridges and
cloverleaf interchanges along the new highway were constructed. In addition, a large traffic circle was built in Stoney Creek to connect with Highway 20. The majority of this structural work was completed by June 1939. However, despite being opened to traffic between Stoney Creek and Jordan, the majority of the new route was gravelled. Over a ten-week period in the late spring and early summer of 1940, were paved, completing the four-lane highway between Hamilton and Niagara Falls. That year, a new grade-separated route for the highway through Etobicoke, (west of Toronto) bypassing the former Middle Road alignment (which later became
The Queensway) opened to the highway's terminus at
Lake Shore Boulevard. It soon came time to name the new highway the "Queen Elizabeth Way", and an upcoming visit by King
George VI and
Queen Elizabeth proved to be the focal point for a dedication ceremony. On June 7, 1939, the two royal family members drove along both the newly connected Toronto-Hamilton and Hamilton-Niagara Falls highways and passed through a light beam near the Henley Bridge in St. Catharines. This caused two
Union Jacks to swing out, revealing a sign which read
The Queen Elizabeth Way. On August 23, 1940, McQuesten cut a ribbon at the Henley Bridge in St. Catharines and officially declared the Queen Elizabeth Way open between Toronto and Niagara Falls, at which point the entire route was given the
Queen Elizabeth Way name. Over a ten-week period in the late spring and early summer of 1940, were paved, completing the four-lane highway between Hamilton and Niagara Falls. Construction on an extension towards Fort Erie, which became known as the
QEW Extension, was underway, but the ongoing war delayed its completion. As an interim measure, the unpaved highway was opened during the summer of 1941. Bypassed by the new QEW extension to Fort Erie in 1941, the Niagara Falls bridge approach became a spur route that was no longer part of the QEW so it was officially named the
Rainbow Bridge Approach for the next three decades (until upgraded and designated as Highway 420 in 1972). Two lanes of pavement were laid in 1946, but the four-lane highway was not fully paved until 1956, with the portion from Niagara Falls to Fort Erie being the last to be fully paved. The entire route – from Toronto's Humber River all the way to Fort Erie, all named as the QEW – was officially opened on October 14 of that year, completing the envisioned highway 25 years after work had begun.
Obsolescence and subsequent reconstruction 1950s-1970s: New alignment, replacement of at-grade intersections and drawbridges Despite some modern infrastructure, including traffic circles, interchanges, and some grade-separations, the majority of the new superhighway was not controlled-access. This meant exiting farmers and homeowners along several segments that were once
concession roads were permitted to build driveways onto the road. In addition, the majority of the crossroads encountered along the route were at-grade intersections. This, combined with the ever-increasing number of automobiles, traffic jams, accidents, and deteriorating pavement, led the Department of Highways to state it had begun "salvaging" the QEW in its 1953 annual report. The first new interchange opened at
Dixie Road in 1953, beginning a seven-year program to make the Hamilton–Toronto section into a full-fledged freeway. Over the next three years, the route was improved west to Highway 10 (
Hurontario Street). This work was completed in early 1956.
Service roads were installed and 13 intersections eliminated, resulting in a 50% reduction of the accident rate along that section. In Toronto, work began in 1955 to construct the
Gardiner Expressway, which would tie in with the end of the QEW. The first section of the Gardiner, connecting the QEW to Jameson Avenue, was officially opened by
Metropolitan Toronto chairman
Fred Gardiner and Premier
Leslie Frost on August 8, 1958. Work was also underway on the Toronto Bypass, involving the upgrade of
Highway 27 to a freeway between the QEW and the new
Highway 401. Construction began in 1953, and included a reconstruction of the cloverleaf interchange with the QEW with larger loop ramps. This interchange would become one of the worst
bottlenecks in the province only a decade after its completion, according to Highways Minister
Charles MacNaughton. in 1959. The former Service Road interchange west of Bronte Creek is under construction in the background. On September 11, 1957, construction began to widen the QEW to six lanes between Highway 27 and the Humber River. It was completed by December 1958, as were interchanges with Mississauga Road and Kerr Street. Service roads allowed engineers to separate local access from the highway and avoid space-consuming interchanges in many places. Therefore, interchanges were only opened at Bronte Road (then
Highway 25), Kerr Street, Royal Windsor Drive (then
Highway 122), Southdown Road (now Erin Mills Parkway north of the interchange), Mississauga Road, Hurontario Street (then still Highway 10), Cawthra Road, Dixie Road, and Highway 27. Two major projects were ongoing near Burlington at this point. On April 29, 1952, the
W.E. Fitzgerald struck the two-lane
lift bridge at the entrance to Hamilton Harbour. Damage to the crossing resulted in the QEW's closure until a temporary bridge was erected. To remedy what was becoming a major delay and hazard, the Department of Highways began planning a high-level bridge to cross the shipping channel. Immediately west of the Guelph Line interchange, construction also began to improve access to the new bridge with the
Freeman Diversion, a new routing of the QEW that would bypass the existing
Middle Road section which passed through the community of Freeman that was becoming increasingly built-up, then connect to a new
three-way junction (the
Freeman Interchange) with the proposed
Chedoke Expressway, and continue to the existing
Burlington Interchange which would retain the underpass for
Middle Road but be reconfigured to accept traffic primarily from the
Diversion. Work on the new bridge and
Diversion proceeded over the next six years. The Freeman Diversion opened to traffic in August 1958, with the old alignment becoming an eastward extension of Plains Road (still directly accessible via a
split west of Guelph Line). As with the Burlington Bay Skyway, tolls were collected on the Garden City Skyway. The collection of tolls on both skyways continued until December 28, 1973. , in June 1961. This rotary junction was the only example built in Ontario. It was reconfigured to a conventional
parclo A4 in 2001. On September 15, 1960, the Shook's Hill interchange, a rotary junction or grade-separated traffic circle (the only example in Ontario, although this interchange type is common in the
United Kingdom), was completed at what is now
Erin Mills Parkway. It was opened to traffic the following day, and completed the program to make the QEW a freeway between Burlington and Toronto. A project to reconstruct the intersection with Brant Street into an interchange was completed 1964 and made the QEW a freeway between Hamilton and Toronto. By 1963, work was underway to improve the Niagara Falls–Hamilton stretch of the QEW into a controlled-access highway. At the end of 1966, the QEW was six lanes wide through Mississauga and Toronto, as well as between the Freeman Interchange and east of Brant Street. This six-laning was extended west from Ninth Line to Kerr Street by 1968. The remaining section of four-lane highway along the Burlington to Toronto stretch, between Brant Street and Kerr Street, was reconstructed beginning in 1970 and completed by 1972. The late 1960s and early 1970s also saw the complete reconstruction of three important interchanges: the Rainbow Bridge Approach (later Highway 420) in Niagara Falls, Highway 20 (Centennial Parkway) in Hamilton, and Highway 27 in Toronto. The former two were traffic circles in place since the QEW was opened in 1940; the third was a large cloverleaf interchange that had become outdated with the expansion of Highway 27 to twelve lanes throughout the 1960s. The connections with the Rainbow Bridge Approach and with Highway 27 required new massive high-speed interchanges to accommodate freeway-to-freeway traffic movements. . The four-level junction with Highway 27 (which would be renumbered as Highway 427 on December 4, 1971) was built over and required the construction of 19 bridges and the equivalent of of two-lane roadway. Traffic staging required the temporary diversion of QEW traffic to an overpass that would eventually be used for
The Queensway, while the flyover from Niagara-bound QEW to northbound Highway 27 express was among those that was constructed first but temporarily served the opposite traffic movement until the latter's dedicated flyover ramp was opened later. Construction began in September 1968, Construction of the four-level interchange between the QEW and Rainbow Bridge Approach began in 1971, removing the two traffic circles along the approach at the QEW and Dorchester Road. The interchange between the QEW and Lundy's Lane (Highway 20) was also removed; instead, the new interchange provided access to Montrose Road. The work was completed by April 1972, at which point the Rainbow Bridge Approach was designated as Highway 420. Planning for the removal of the Stoney Creek traffic circle was completed by 1970, This involved the removal of a rail line which crossed through the circle, and was the demise of one of two major features along the route. The new interchange opened in 1978, completing the transformation of the QEW into a controlled-access highway.
1980s to 1997: Growing capacity Now functioning as a freeway, the QEW was already overburdened by the ever-increasing number of vehicles. The Burlington Bay Skyway, which was built to bypass
Hamilton Harbour and the
Port of Hamilton, was the lone four-lane link on the route between Hamilton and Toronto. It was initially designed to handle 50,000 vehicles daily, but by 1973 there were 60,000 vehicles crossing it. Preliminary work on a second parallel structure began a decade later in 1983. In July of that year, Transportation Minister
James Snow broke ground for the new bridge. Construction was carried out over two years, and the twinned structure was opened on October 11, 1985.) and Northshore Boulevard (then Highway 2) including a collector lane for Niagara-bound traffic and on/off-ramps to Eastport Drive. Eastport Drive was built at the same time to relieve traffic on
Beach Boulevard. This work was completed between late 1984 and 1990. With the expanded capacity of the Burlington Skyway, and the unanticipated traffic volumes on Highway 403, the Freeman Interchange was now faced with a capacity problem. To resolve this, the renamed Ministry of Transportation began planning for the missing link of Highway 403 between Burlington and Mississauga that would run parallel to the QEW; this right-of-way would be sold to the
407 ETR consortium in 1995 and built as part of that route. Work began in August 1991 to reconfigure the directional-T interchange to modern standards, which included realigning the QEW carriageways as mainline traffic, and adding a fourth leg for the future Burlington-Mississauga link. Due to land and cost constraints of the reconstruction, this necessitated replacing the directional ramp with a lower-capacity loop ramp for the movement from Toronto-bound QEW to the Brantford-bound Highway 403 (as some traffic was expected to be diverted away from the Burlington Skyway to the under-construction
Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and planned
Red Creek Expressway). The rebuilt Freeman Interchange was partially opened on October 23, 1993 to serve the existing QEW and Highway 403 segments; the first sod for what would open as Highway 407 was turned that day. The completed ramps (the first to be built were cast-in-place post-tensioned bridges to cross Highway 403 westbound, followed in 2000 by precast girder bridges to pass over the North Service Road) connecting to the future Burlington-Mississauga freeway sat unused until that segment finally opened on July 30, 2001, as part of Highway 407 ETR. Budgetary restraints in the 1990s forced the provincial government to sell off or download many highways to lower levels of government, or, in the case of Highway 407, to a private consortium. As part of recommendations, the QEW east of Highway 427 to the Humber River was transferred to the responsibility of Metro Toronto. The transfer took place on April 1, 1997. The city subsequently designated that segment as a westward extension of the Gardiner Expressway. After the provincial downloading and
Amalgamation of Toronto, this stretch of former QEW has remained largely unchanged though some segments have received a mix of high mast and low masts with shaded high pressure sodium lamps (similar to the
Don Valley Parkway), while the old steel guardrail in the median was replaced by an Ontario "tall-wall" concrete barrier in 2007. Worn-out bilingual provincial signage have received unilingual replacements, while billboards which the province had long prohibited have been erected in proximity of the now-municipal freeway. At the partial interchange with Kipling Avenue, the offramp from the westbound collectors initially only led to Kipling Avenue northbound, but in 2005 the City of Toronto modified it to a signalized junction that would also provide access to Kipling Avenue southbound too. The nearby Hurontario Street interchange, originally a cloverleaf junction, was reconfigured to a five-ramp parclo by 2010. In 2001-2002, modifications were made to the interchange with Highway 427. This included a new loop ramp from the Highway 427 southbound collector lanes to the eastbound Gardiner Expressway (formerly Toronto-bound QEW), aimed at relieving the congestion in the express lanes created by the southbound collector-to-express transfer near Bloor Street, as the southbound collectors originally lacked direct access to the Toronto-bound QEW (downloaded from the province in 1998 to become the part of the Gardiner). This new ramp to the eastbound Gardiner required a realignment and underpass tunnel of the existing off-ramp from the westbound Gardiner (formerly the Hamilton-bound QEW) to Browns Line. The westbound Gardiner Expressway (formerly the Hamilton-bound QEW) received an off-ramp to
Sherway Gardens, which necessitated an underpass to be implemented in the directional ramp from the Highway 427 southbound express to the Hamilton-bound QEW. At the intersection of the northbound access road from Sherway Gardens to The Queensway, a new on-ramp to the Highway 427 southbound collectors was added, enabling access to either Browns Line or the eastbound Gardiner Expressway (using the new loop ramp). The
Red Hill Valley Parkway, which opened on November 16, 2007, added a significant new interchange to the QEW. The ramp to the southbound parkway did not open until December 2008. The nearby interchange to
Burlington Street had its 1958-built overpass replaced to accommodate the widening of the QEW to eight lanes, which included a collector lane on the Niagara-bound QEW to avoid weaving that otherwise would have resulted from the close proximity to the Red Hill Valley Parkway junction. Construction was completed in 2009. From 1998 to 2003, the QEW between Brant Street and Guelph Line was expanded from four to eight lanes, necessitating the removal of the underused
Freeman Diversion split including the Niagara-bound carriageway's left-hand exit to Plains Road, so the Toronto-bound carriageway could be shifted next to the Niagara-bound carriageway where the opposing directions would be separated by a concrete median barrier and high mast lighting. This complemented the replacement of the existing railway grade separation (where each carriageway had its own underpass in order to accommodate the Plains Road off-ramp) with a new single structure wide enough to accommodate both directions of the expanded freeway. Access from the QEW to Plains Road had become redundant since the nearby Brant Street interchange had opened in 1991, so Plains Road was redirected to the existing service road (Queensway Drive/Harvester Road) that meets Guelph Line at an intersection just south of Guelph Line's interchange with the QEW. The interchange with Guelph Line (originally a full cloverleaf when built, with the northern half modified to a diamond in the mid-1960s) was reconfigured to modern Parlo A4 that exclusively served QEW traffic after the ramps to Plains Road were removed, which was completed in 2006. Starting in 2007, the highway was widened to permit an additional HOV lane in either direction between Guelph Line and Trafalgar Road, which involved twinning the Bronte Creek and Sixteen Mile Creek Bridges following by rehabilitating the original structures. These lanes were opened to traffic on November 29, 2010. Work began in 2005 to widen the QEW from four to six lanes through St. Catharines from Highway 406 to the Garden City Skyway. This segment whose original design dated back to 1939, saw several interchanges improved and numerous structures replaced, although the widened Henley Bridge kept its classic architecture while existing service roads and local properties beside the freeway were largely retained. Work was completed on August 26, 2011, at a cost of $186 million. In the late 2000s, for the section of the QEW between the Freeman Interchange and North Shore Boulevard, an additional lane was added for Niagara-bound traffic, while the widening of the structure crossing Fairview Street/Plains Road enabled the loop ramp from Fairview Street to be reinstated; this onramp was originally opened in 1985 and closed off in 2001 when Highway 407 ETR opened after concerns from the city over cyclists' safety. As part of the future widening of the QEW, the existing cast-in-place concrete bridges for the North Shore Boulevard underpass were joined by two precast box girder structures on either side in 2021. prior to reconstruction that commenced in 2016; the
Ford Assembly Plant is in the background. In Oakville, improvements were made to the Highway 403/QEW/Ford Drive interchange. Since 2017, traffic using the existing loop ramp in the NE corner to access Highway 403/QEW was directed onto a new overpass instead of sharing the existing overpass with westbound Highway 403 traffic. From November 2016 to 2020, the 1970s-era bridges carrying QEW traffic across Ford Drive and the eastbound ramp to Highway 403 were demolished and replaced by new wider structures which can accommodate future HOV lanes and high-mast lighting. At the present, Highway 403 only connects to the QEW west of the interchange, but a new set of flyover ramps are being proposed from Highway 403 to the QEW east of that junction using the existing right-of-way which would allow for a direct freeway connection from southern Mississauga to Milton (via Highway 407 to Highway 401). There are also plans to twin the bridge spanning the Credit River in Mississauga. A second bridge will be built alongside the existing structure, which will then be repaired while traffic is shifted to the new bridge. In November 2019, the
Ford government announced that the historic bridge would be demolished and replaced, but changed course due to public opposition on December 18 by restricting project bids to those that would rehabilitate the structure. Construction of Ontario's first
diverging diamond interchange, at Glendale Avenue, began in January 2021. The new interchange, which includes a dedicated ramp to Airport Road, opened to traffic on September 26, 2022. ==Future==