Highbury Avenue is an
arterial road located in the
Canadian province
Within the geographical areas of Canada, the ten provinces and three territories are sub-national administrative divisions under the jurisdiction of the Canadian Constitution. In the 1867 Canadian Confederation, three provinces of British North ...
of
Ontario
Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central Ca ...
. In addition to serving as a primary north–south thoroughfare in eastern
London
London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...
– through which part of it is a
limited-access freeway – the road also provides access to
Highway 401 and continues south to
St. Thomas. The southern terminus of Highbury Avenue is an intersection with South Edgeware Road, just north of
Highway 3 and the eastern end of the
St. Thomas Expressway. From there, it travels north to
Highway 7, east of
Elginfield. Outside of London and St. Thomas, the road also passes through the communities of
Ballymote and
Bryanston. It is designated as Elgin County Road 30 within
Central Elgin
Central Elgin is a township located in Southwestern Ontario, Canada in Elgin County on Lake Erie. It is part of the London census metropolitan area.
History
Central Elgin was formed in 1998 through the amalgamation of the Township of Yarmouth ...
, and as Middlesex County Road 23 within
Middlesex Centre, the two rural
municipalities
A municipality is usually a single administrative division having corporate status and powers of self-government or jurisdiction as granted by national and regional laws to which it is subordinate.
The term ''municipality'' may also mean the go ...
through which the route passes.
North of the
Thames River, the road was laid out as part of the survey of London Township. It came to be known as the Asylum Side Road until being renamed Highbury Avenue in 1928. It was extended south of the river to Highway401 as a four-lane freeway in 1963, which the City of London named the Wenige Expressway in 1965. Between 1963 and 1991, the section from Wilton Grove Road to Hamilton Road was
provincially maintained and designated as Highway 126. In the 1990s, Highbury Avenue was continued south to St. Thomas along Hubrey Side Road and Radio Road.
Route description
Highbury Avenue is a road that travels north from St. Thomas, through London, to Highway7, east of Elginfield. Located within
Elgin County,
Middlesex County and the City of London, it is
classified as an arterial road throughout its length, with the exception of a section between Highway401 and the Thames River, which is classified as a freeway by the City of London.
Between St. Thomas and London, approximately 15,000vehicles travel Highbury Avenue on
an average day. This climbs to 48,000vehicles at the Thames River crossing before gradually dropping to 30,000vehicles at
Fanshawe Park Road. North of there, traffic levels drop to 9,000–10,000 through Middlesex Centre.
South of Highway 401
The southern terminus of Highbury Avenue is an intersection with South Edgeware Road, just north of Highway3 and the eastern end of the St. Thomas Expressway. It travels in a straight line north as a two lane road through an industrial park on the outskirts of St. Thomas and crosses the
Ontario Southland Railway tracks. The northeastern corner of a subdivision and a
high voltage transmission line
Electric power transmission is the bulk movement of electrical energy from a power generation, generating site, such as a power plant, to an electrical substation. The interconnected lines that facilitate this movement form a ''transmission net ...
meet Highbury Avenue at the intersection of Elgin County Road52 (Ron McNeil Line), after which the road enters the rural township of Central Elgin. Through Central Elgin, the road is designated as
Elgin County Road 30.
Dipping into the
Kettle Creek valley, Highbury Avenue passes the trailhead of the
Dan Patterson Conservation Area
Dan or DAN may refer to:
People
* Dan (name), including a list of people with the name
** Dan (king), several kings of Denmark
* Dan people, an ethnic group located in West Africa
**Dan language, a Mande language spoken primarily in Côte d'Ivoi ...
at Mapleton Line. It crosses Salt Creek and Kettle Creek within the valley before returning to an agricultural setting at Elgin County Road48 (Ferguson Line).
Approaching the Elgin County boundary, the road swerves northwest as it transitions from the
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
-oriented
survey
Survey may refer to:
Statistics and human research
* Statistical survey, a method for collecting quantitative information about items in a population
* Survey (human research), including opinion polls
Spatial measurement
* Surveying, the techniq ...
of Elgin County to the Thames River-oriented survey of former
Westminster Township.
Highbury Avenue crosses from Central Elgin into the city of London at the intersection of Webber Bourne and Thompson Line, although the surroundings remain agricultural. It travels between farm fields for the next , with the
LEED Certified London Southeast Pumping Station and Reservoir near the
ghost village
Ghost Town(s) or Ghosttown may refer to:
* Ghost town, a town that has been abandoned
Film and television
* Ghost Town (1936 film), ''Ghost Town'' (1936 film), an American Western film by Harry L. Fraser
* Ghost Town (1956 film), ''Ghost Town'' ...
of
Hubrey breaking the monotony.
Leaving the farmland to cross two branches of Dingman Creek, Highbury Avenue widens to four lanes, and enters urban London at Wilton Grove Road, where it divides the Wilton Grove Industrial Park.
Urban London
Proceeding north, Highbury Avenue curves northwest as it crosses Highway401 at Exit189. North of that
interchange, the opposing
carriageways separate as Highbury Avenue transitions into a
controlled-access highway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...
. It curves back northward parallel to and east of high-voltage transmission lines before encountering an interchange with
Bradley Avenue.
It continues, sandwiched between the established neighbourhood of Pond Mills and the developing neighbourhood of Summerside,
to an interchange with
Commissioner's Road.
It then begins to descend into the Thames River valley as it travels west of the Meadowlily Nature Preserve.
Crossing the Thames River and the Thames Valley Parkway recreational trail, the freeway portion of Highbury Avenue ends at Power Street, alongside the Highbury
transformer station
A substation is a part of an electrical generation, transmission, and distribution system. Substations transform voltage from high to low, or the reverse, or perform any of several other important functions. Between the generating station and c ...
.
It transitions back to an arterial road as it approaches
Hamilton Road
Archibald Milne Hamilton (1898–1972) was a New Zealand civil engineer, notable for building the Hamilton Road through Kurdistan and designing the Callender-Hamilton bridge system., and with the Callendar-Hamilton aeroplane shed of the late 1930 ...
, with detached residences lining the route between Hamilton Road and Trafalgar Street. After crossing over the
Canadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company (french: Compagnie des chemins de fer nationaux du Canada) is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States.
CN i ...
(CN) Dundas subdivision and passing the
London Transit
The London Transit Commission (LTC) is responsible for the operation of the public transit system on behalf of the City of London, Ontario, Canada. It operates transit bus service and para-transit service. In 2014, annual ridership totaled 24.1 ...
main office, it continues between residences and crosses the CN Guelph subdivision
at grade
AT or at may refer to:
Geography Austria
* Austria (ISO 2-letter country code)
* .at, Internet country code top-level domain
United States
* Atchison County, Kansas (county code)
* The Appalachian Trail (A.T.), a 2,180+ mile long mountaino ...
. Between
Dundas Street
Dundas Street is a major historic arterial road in Ontario, Canada. The road connects the city of Toronto with its western suburbs and several cities in southwestern Ontario. Three provincial highways— 2, 5, and 99—followed long sectio ...
(former
Highway 2) and
Oxford Street, Highbury Avenue crosses over the
Canadian Pacific Railway
The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...
(CP) Galt subdivision and travels along the western side of the former
London Psychiatric Hospital.
After passing to the west of
Fanshawe College
Fanshawe College of Applied Arts and Technology, commonly shortened to Fanshawe College, is a public college in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. One of the largest colleges in Canada, it has campuses in London, Simcoe, St. Thomas and Woodstock w ...
, Highbury Avenue travels through the neighbourhood of Huron Heights. It crosses the North Thames River, and reaches the London
rural–urban fringe
The rural–urban fringe, also known as the outskirts, rurban, peri-urban or the urban hinterland, can be described as the "landscape interface between town and country", or also as the transition zone where urban and rural uses mix and often ...
just north of the historic crossroad hamlet of
Fanshawe at Stoney Creek. It narrows to a two-lane rural road and becomes surrounded by farmland north of there. Approximately north of
Sunningdale Road, it crosses from London into Middlesex Centre.
Middlesex Centre
Highbury Avenue travels north through the municipality of Middlesex Centre, where it is designated as Middlesex County Road23. It bisects the communities of Ballymote at Middlesex County Road28 (Medway Road), and Bryanston at Middlesex County Road16 (Plover Mills Road). Otherwise, it is almost exclusively surrounded by farmland for the remainder of its length. It ends at Highway7 (Elginfield Road), the boundary between Middlesex Centre and
Lucan Biddulph, approximately east of Elginfield.
History
North of the Thames River, what would eventually become Highbury Avenue was first laid out as a
concession road
In Upper and Lower Canada, concession roads were laid out by the colonial government through undeveloped Crown land to provide access to rows of newly surveyed lots intended for farming by new settlers. The land that comprised a row of lots that ...
in the original survey of
London Township.
Mahlon Burwell
Mahlon Burwell (February 18, 1783 – January 25, 1846) was a surveyor and political figure in Upper Canada.
He was born in New Jersey in 1783 and came to Upper Canada with his family in 1796. He was largely self-schooled and was employed by ...
began this survey in 1810, but its completion was delayed until after the end of the
War of 1812
The War of 1812 (18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It bega ...
.
Because it connected to the London Asylum (opened 1870, later the London Psychiatric Hospital), the concession road came to be known as the Asylum Side Road.
However, this name was apparently never official.
As development in London crept eastward along Hamilton Road in the early 20thcentury, Highbury Avenue was adopted as the local name of the route near that crossroad as early as 1921.
It became the official name of the entire route north of the Thames River in late 1928.
South of the Thames River, no road existed before the 1960s between the present-day Green Valley Road, south of Highway401, and Power Street, on the north shore of the river.
Plans to widen Highbury Avenue and extend it south to the new Highway401 emerged in the late 1950s. In February 1958, a new four-lane overpass of the north of Dundas Street was opened, replacing an old bridge that had existed since at least 1915. This was the first obstacle to widening the entire road as an eastern bypass of London.
Later in the year, on September9, Minister of Highways
Fred Cass announced that pre-engineering work would begin on the Highbury Avenue extension to Highway401 the following year.
A contract to build bridge over the Thames River was awarded in November 1960.
Dinsmore Construction of Windsor was awarded a separate contract to
grade and pave the extension in April 1962.
Construction also began that year on an overpass of the tracks north of Trafalgar Street.
The CNR overpass and Highbury Avenue extension were opened together by a motorcade ceremony on December9, 1963.
The extension was built by the
Department of Highways (DHO), and was signed as Highway126 from Wilton Grove Road to Hamilton Road.
This became a contentious issue for the City of London, which had adopted a resolution in August of that year to name the extension the Wenige Expressway, in honour of
nine-term mayor of London,
George Wenige.
Despite objections from the DHO, which preferred the readability of a number on signage for safety reasons, London ordered signs erected with the name in May 1965.
However, the DHO prevailed and these signs were only installed along a section between Power Street and Hamilton Road. The signs remained in place until at least 1981, when it was described by a city traffic official as a "20-second expressway".
By the time construction had begun on the extension, proposals for a freeway to connect London with St. Thomas were also being considered.
In October 1964, potential route locations for several controlled-access highways around London were revealed to Middlesex, Elgin and Oxford county officials. Among them were what would eventually become
Highway 402, a link between London and St. Thomas, as well as a route around the northern edge of London.
Several months later, deputy minister of highways, A.T.C. McNab, announced on May19 that planning was underway on the London–St. Thomas link.
The DHO-commissioned London Area Highway Planning Study, published in July 1966, examined traffic patterns and determined ideal travel lines and redundant routes. It confirmed the need for and priority of the new link, as well as continuing Highway126 north then west to Highway402.
Planning studies for the London–St. Thomas route were completed by 1968.
The proposed route was presented to the public at the
Western Fair
The Western Fair is a fair held annually in London, Ontario, Canada in early September.
History
The first Western Fair was held in September 1868 in downtown London, northeast of the current location of Victoria Park. Organizers had hoped to u ...
on September8, 1972, along with the St. Thomas Expressway.
Ultimately, the St. Thomas Expressway would open alone on September7, 1981.
With the outward growth of suburban London and the proposed annexation of Westminster Township in the early 1990s, responsibility for Highway126 was transferred from the provincial government to the City of London effective June12, 1991.
That year also saw an interchange opened at Bradley Avenue.
Later in 1994, the Highbury Avenue interchange and overpass at Highway401 was reconstructed. The reconstruction led to the existing
cloverleaf being converted to a
parclo configuration with
traffic light
Traffic lights, traffic signals, or stoplights – known also as robots in South Africa are signalling devices positioned at intersection (road), road intersections, pedestrian crossings, and other locations in order to control flows of traf ...
s.
Highbury Avenue was extended south to St. Thomas circa 1999,
along what was known as Hubrey Side Road within London, and Radio Road within Elgin County.
Future
Work is currently underway to replace the bridge over the Thames River, which as of 2021 is 57 years old. Following completion, a million contract is set to begin in late 2022 to rebuild the route south of the bridge to Highway401. A cost–benefit analysis is being conducted to determine if a concrete or asphalt surface is better suited for the road.
Major intersections
References
External links
Video of Highbury Avenue between Wilton Grove Road and Hamilton Road
{{Ontario Controlled Access Highways
Roads in London, Ontario