King's Highway2, commonly referred to as Highway2, is the lowest-numbered
provincially maintained highway 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 ...
, and was originally part of a series of identically numbered highways which started in
Windsor
Windsor may refer to:
Places Australia
* Windsor, New South Wales
** Municipality of Windsor, a former local government area
* Windsor, Queensland, a suburb of Brisbane, Queensland
**Shire of Windsor, a former local government authority around Wi ...
, stretched through
Quebec
Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...
and
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
, and ended in
Halifax, Nova Scotia
Halifax is the capital and largest municipality of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, and the largest municipality in Atlantic Canada. As of the 2021 Census, the municipal population was 439,819, with 348,634 people in its urban area. The ...
. Prior to the 1990s, Highway2 travelled through many of the major cities in
Southern Ontario
Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada. The exact northern boundary of Southern Ontario is disp ...
, including Windsor,
Chatham
Chatham may refer to:
Places and jurisdictions Canada
* Chatham Islands (British Columbia)
* Chatham Sound, British Columbia
* Chatham, New Brunswick, a former town, now a neighbourhood of Miramichi
* Chatham (electoral district), New Brunswic ...
,
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 ...
,
Brantford
Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County, but is politically separate with ...
,
Hamilton Hamilton may refer to:
People
* Hamilton (name), a common British surname and occasional given name, usually of Scottish origin, including a list of persons with the surname
** The Duke of Hamilton, the premier peer of Scotland
** Lord Hamilt ...
,
Burlington
Burlington may refer to:
Places Canada Geography
* Burlington, Newfoundland and Labrador
* Burlington, Nova Scotia
* Burlington, Ontario, the most populous city with the name "Burlington"
* Burlington, Prince Edward Island
* Burlington Bay, no ...
,
Mississauga
Mississauga ( ), historically known as Toronto Township, is a city in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is situated on the shores of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, adjoining the western border of Toronto. With a popul ...
,
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
,
Oshawa
Oshawa ( , also ; 2021 population 175,383; CMA 415,311) is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately east of Downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the G ...
,
Belleville,
Kingston and
Cornwall
Cornwall (; kw, Kernow ) is a historic county and ceremonial county in South West England. It is recognised as one of the Celtic nations, and is the homeland of the Cornish people. Cornwall is bordered to the north and west by the Atlantic ...
, amongst many other smaller towns and communities.
Once the primary east–west route across the southern portion of Ontario, most of Highway2 was bypassed by
Highway 401
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 provin ...
, which was completed in 1968. The August 1997
completion of Highway 403 bypassed one final section through Brantford. Virtually all of the length of Highway2 was deemed a local route and removed from the provincial highway system by January1, 1998, with the exception of a section east of
Gananoque
Gananoque ( )
is a town in the Leeds and Grenville United Counties, Leeds and Grenville area of Ontario, Canada. The town had a population of 5,383 year-round residents in the 2021 Canadian census, 2021 Canadian Census, as well as summer resident ...
. The entire route remains driveable, but as ''County Road2'' or ''County Highway2'' in most regions. In Toronto, former sections of the route are now
Lake Shore Boulevard
Lake Shore Boulevard (often incorrectly compounded as Lakeshore Boulevard) is a major arterial road running along more than half of the Lake Ontario waterfront in the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Prior to 1998, two segments of Lake Shore ...
and
Kingston Road.
![Highway 2 Gananoque](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Highway_2_Gananoque.png)
Portions of what became Highway2 served as early settlement trails,
post road
A post road is a road designated for the transportation of postal mail. In past centuries, only major towns had a post house and the roads used by post riders or mail coaches to carry mail among them were particularly important ones or, due ...
s and
stagecoach routes. While the arrival of the railroad in the mid-19th century diminished the importance of the route, the advent of the bicycle and later the automobile renewed interest in roadbuilding. A segment of Highway2 between
Pickering and
Port Hope was the first section of roadway assumed by the newly-formed Department of Public Highways (DPHO) on August21, 1917. By the end of 1920, the department had taken over roads connecting Windsor with the Quebec boundary at
Rivière-Beaudette
Rivière-Beaudette () is a municipality of Quebec, Canada, located in the southwest corner of the Vaudreuil-Soulanges Regional County Municipality on the border with Ontario along the St. Lawrence River. The population as of the 2021 Canadian ...
, which it would number as Provincial Highway2 in the summer of 1925. In 1930, the DPHO was renamed the Department of Highways (DHO), and provincial highways became King's Highways. By this time, it was one of the dominant transportation arteries across
southern Ontario
Southern Ontario is a primary region of the province of Ontario, Canada, the other primary region being Northern Ontario. It is the most densely populated and southernmost region in Canada. The exact northern boundary of Southern Ontario is disp ...
and was long.
The section of Highway2 between Hamilton and Toronto along
Lakeshore Road
Lakeshore Road (originally Lake Shore Road) is a historic roadway in the Canadian province of Ontario, running through the city of Burlington and the town of Oakville in Halton Region, as well as the city of Mississauga in Peel Region. As its n ...
became the first paved intercity road in Ontario in 1914. Beginning in the mid-1930s, the DHO began reconstructing several portions of the highway into the new German-inspired "dual highway", including east from Scarborough along Kingston Road. This would be the progenitor to Highway401, which was built in a patchwork fashion across Southern Ontario throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, often as bypass of and parallel to Highway2 (except between
Woodstock
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
and Toronto). Conversely, the importance of Highway2 for long-distance travel was all but eliminated, and coupled with the increasing suburbanization of the
Greater Toronto Area
The Greater Toronto Area, commonly referred to as the GTA, includes the City of Toronto and the regional municipalities of Durham, Halton, Peel, and York. In total, the region contains 25 urban, suburban, and rural municipalities. The Greater T ...
, it became an urban commuter route between Hamilton and Oshawa.
Having being replaced in importance by the parallel
freeways
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 ...
of Highway401, the
Queen Elizabeth Way
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 freeway begins at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and travels around the western ...
, and finally Highway403, the province gradually transferred sections of the route back to the municipal, county and regional governments that it passed through, a process known as ''downloading''. In 1997 and 1998, the province downloaded of Highway2 and rescinded dozens of
Connecting Link
The Connecting Link program is a provincial subsidy provided to municipalities to assist with road construction, maintenance and repairs in the Canadian province of Ontario. Roads which are designated as ''connecting links'' form the portions of ...
agreements, reducing the route to its current length.
Route description
Since 1998, Highway2 has remained in the provincial highway system solely as a connection between westbound
Thousand Islands Parkway
The Thousand Islands Parkway (often written as 1000 Islands Parkway) is a scenic parkway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It extends easterly from an interchange with Highway 401 in Gananoque for approximately to rejoin Highway401 nea ...
and eastbound Highway401. Highway2 begins at the eastern town limits of Gananoque, and travels east a short distance before gently curving northward. It meets an
interchange with the Thousand Islands Parkway—once referred to as Highway2S,
prior to becoming a temporary part of Highway401 in 1952—and ends at the westbound Highway401 offramp (Exit648).
The roadway continues as
Leeds and Grenville County Road 2 both east and west of the highway.
Before 1997
Before being mostly-decommissioned as a provincial highway in the mid-1990s, Highway2 was a continuous route from
Highway 3 in Windsor to the Quebec border.
Prior to the arrival of Highway401 in the 1950s and early 1960s, Highway2 was the primary east–west route across the southern portion of Ontario.
At one time it connected with
Quebec Route 2, which was renumbered in 1966 as multiple highways,
and onwards to
New Brunswick Route 2 and
Nova Scotia Trunk 2 to end in
Halifax. New Brunswick reassigned Route2 to a new freeway running between
Fredericton
Fredericton (; ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The city is situated in the west-central portion of the province along the Saint John River, which flows west to east as it bisects the city. The river is the do ...
and
Moncton
Moncton (; ) is the most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of New Brunswick. Situated in the Petitcodiac River Valley, Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the The Maritimes, Maritime Provinces. The ...
in 2007,
while Nova Scotia kept its portion of Highway2 intact, numbering its bypass as
Highway 102 and
Highway 104.
In 1972, the Ontario and Quebec governments designated Highway/Route2 from Windsor to
Rivière-du-Loup
Rivière-du-Loup (; 2021 population 20,118) is a small city on the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River in Quebec. The city is the seat for the Rivière-du-Loup Regional County Municipality and the judicial district of Kamouraska. Its one of ...
as the
Heritage Highway (Route des Pionniers), a
tourist route
A scenic route, tourist road, tourist route, tourist drive, holiday route, theme route, or scenic byway is a specially designated road or waterway that travels through an area of natural or cultural beauty. It often passes by scenic viewpoint ...
which continued eastward to the
Gaspé Peninsula
The Gaspé Peninsula, also known as Gaspesia (; ), is a peninsula along the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River that extends from the Matapedia Valley in Quebec, Canada, into the Gulf of Saint Lawrence. It is separated from New Brunswick o ...
on what is now
Quebec Route 132
Route 132 is the longest highway in Quebec. It follows the south shore of the Saint Lawrence River from the border with the state of New York in the hamlet of Dundee (connecting with New York State Route 37 (NY 37) via NY 970T, ...
.
[ ][ ]
This tourist route included various side trips, such as highways to
Ottawa
Ottawa (, ; Canadian French: ) is the capital city of Canada. It is located at the confluence of the Ottawa River and the Rideau River in the southern portion of the province of Ontario. Ottawa borders Gatineau, Quebec, and forms the core ...
and
Niagara Falls
Niagara Falls () is a group of three waterfalls at the southern end of Niagara Gorge, spanning the border between the province of Ontario in Canada and the state of New York in the United States. The largest of the three is Horseshoe Falls, ...
.
While this signage is maintained in some counties, others have promoted local tours, including the Apple Route between
Trenton and
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
,
the Arts Route in
Hastings County
Hastings County is located in the province of Ontario, Canada. Geographically, it is located on the border of Eastern Ontario and Central Ontario. Hastings County is the second-largest county in Ontario, after Renfrew County, and its county ...
,
and the Chemin du Roy (The King's Way, now
Route 138) between Montreal and
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...
.
Windsor–Mississauga
Within Ontario and prior to 1997,
Highway2 began in Windsor at the interchange between the E. C. Row Expressway and Highway3 (
Huron Church Road
King's Highway 3, commonly referred to as Highway 3, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario which travels parallel to the northern shoreline of Lake Erie. It has three segments, the first of which travels from t ...
), where it also met the northern terminus of
Highway 18. It followed the expressway east through Windsor, with the divided highway transitioning to an urban
arterial road
An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector ro ...
near Lesperance Road.
It travelled nearby the south shoreline of
Lake St. Clair
Lake St. Clair (french: Lac Sainte-Claire) is a freshwater lake that lies between the Canadian province of Ontario and the U.S. state of Michigan. It was named in 1679 by French Catholic explorers after Saint Clare of Assisi, on whose feast day ...
as it bisected
Emeryville Emeryville may refer to:
* Emeryville, California
Emeryville is a city located in northwest Alameda County, California, in the United States. It lies in a corridor between the cities of Berkeley and Oakland, with a border on the shore of San ...
and
Belle River before curving south briefly. It then turned east and travelled through a rural setting to
Tilbury
Tilbury is a port town in the borough of Thurrock, Essex, England. The present town was established as separate settlement in the late 19th century, on land that was mainly part of Chadwell St Mary. It contains a 16th century fort and an ancie ...
, where it met Highway401 at two interchanges (Exit56 and 63). Crossing from
Essex County to
Kent County, the highway curved northeast and passed through Chatham—where it intersected
Highway 40—
Louisville
Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border.
...
and
Thamesville
Thamesville is a community in Chatham-Kent, Ontario, Canada. It is located at the junction of former provincial Highways 2 and 21, between Chatham and London. Its name comes from the Thames River that flows nearby and the suffix -"ville". ...
—where it intersected
Highway 21—before entering
Middlesex County near
Bothwell
Bothwell is a conservation village in the South Lanarkshire council area of Scotland. It lies on the north bank of the River Clyde, adjacent to Uddingston and Hamilton, east-south-east of Glasgow city centre.
Description and history
An ancie ...
—where it met
Highway 79.
Between Chatham and
Delaware
Delaware ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States, bordering Maryland to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and New Jersey and the Atlantic Ocean to its east. The state takes its name from the adjacent Del ...
, Highway2 travelled roughly parallel to and north of the
Thames River
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
. It passed through the communities of
Wardsville,
Strathburn—intersecting
Highway 76 and
Highway 80—and
Melbourne
Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...
before encountering an interchange with
Highway 402 and crossing the Thames River. Within Delaware, the highway intersected
Highway 81 and turned east. At
Lambeth
Lambeth () is a district in South London, England, in the London Borough of Lambeth, historically in the County of Surrey. It is situated south of Charing Cross. The population of the London Borough of Lambeth was 303,086 in 2011. The area expe ...
it met
Highway 4 and the two highways travelled
concurrent
Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to:
Law
* Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea''
* Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...
northeast into London. In downtown London, Highway2 and Highway4 parted at the intersection of York Street and Richmond Street, with Highway2 continuing east along the former. It intersected the northern end of Highway100, now known as the
Veterans Memorial Parkway
The Veterans Memorial Parkway (VMP, known as "Veterans" by locals) is a 13.4 kilometre (8.3 mi) expressway located in the Canadian province of Ontario. The expressway was previously known as King's Highway 100 from 1977 until 1993, and as Airp ...
. While the route was south of the Thames River between Delaware and London, it once again followed roughly along the north side of the river between London and Woodstock, intersecting
Highway 19 between the two in the community of
Thamesford.
![Highway 2 Trailblazer](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/34/Highway_2_Trailblazer.jpg)
At Woodstock, Highway2 intersected
Highway 59 and met Highway401 at an interchange near the split with Highway403. It then continued east, becoming parallel with the latter towards Hamilton. It intersected with
Highway 53 at
Eastwood Eastwood may refer to:
Places
;in Australia
*Eastwood, New South Wales
**Eastwood railway station
**Electoral district of Eastwood
*Eastwood, South Australia
;in Canada
* Eastwood, Ontario
*Eastwood, Edmonton, Alberta, a neighborhood
;in the Ph ...
and passed through the communities of
Creditville,
Gobles and
Falkland before entering
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
. Within Paris, the highway intersected
Highway 24A and met the western terminus of
Highway 5, with which it remained within through to Toronto. Highway2 branched southeast through Brantford, where it intersected
Highway 24 and became concurrent with Highway53 before meeting the end of Highway403 at
Cainsville
Cainsville is a community straddling the boundary of Brantford, Ontario, Brantford and Brant County, Ontario, Brant County in Ontario, Canada.
Cainsville started off as a rural Black Canadians#Settlements, Black Canadian settlement called Bunne ...
;
Highway 54 branched south from there.
Before 1997, Highway403 was discontinuous between Cainsville and
Ancaster, intersecting and merging into Highway2 at both locations. The combined Highway2/53 travelled east through
Alberton, before splitting at
Duff's Corners. Highway2 split to the northeast, and Highway403 resumed at what is now Exit58. Highway2 then travelled through Ancaster, became concurrent with
Highway 8 and entered into Hamilton. At Dundurn Street, the routes split, and Highway2 travelled north, now concurrent with
Highway 6. The two routes split northeast of
Burlington Bay
Hamilton Harbour, formerly known as Burlington Bay, lies on the western tip of Lake Ontario, bounded on the northwest by the City of Burlington, on the south by the City of Hamilton, and on the east by Hamilton Beach (south of the Burlington B ...
, with Highway2 turning northeast into Burlington, encountering an interchange with the
Queen Elizabeth Way
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 freeway begins at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and travels around the western ...
. It then met Lakeshore Road, onto which the route turned and followed into Toronto. Lakeshore Road was aptly named for following the northwestern shores of
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
as it crossed through
Oakville and Mississauga.
Toronto–Quebec
![Kingston Road Street Sign](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5a/Kingston_Road_Street_Sign.jpg)
At the
Etobicoke Creek
Etobicoke Creek is a river in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada. It is a tributary of Lake Ontario and runs from Caledon to southern Etobicoke, part of the City of Toronto. The creek is within the jurisdiction of the Toronto and Regio ...
, Highway2 entered
Etobicoke
Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...
—one of six municipalities that
amalgamated
Amalgamation is the process of combining or uniting multiple entities into one form.
Amalgamation, amalgam, and other derivatives may refer to:
Mathematics and science
* Amalgam (chemistry), the combination of mercury with another metal
**Pan ama ...
to form the present City of Toronto in 1998—and turned east. At that point Lakeshore Road also transitioned to Lakeshore Boulevard. It intersected the southern end of
Highway 27 and travelled through the community of
New Toronto
New Toronto is a neighbourhood and former municipality in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the south-west area of Toronto, along Lake Ontario. The Town of New Toronto was established in 1890, and was designed and planned as an indust ...
, where numerous motels flourished during the
golden age of the automobile which have since given way to condominium development.
At
Humber Bay
Humber Bay is a bay of Lake Ontario south of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located between Ontario Place on the east and Mimico Creek to the west. The bay gives its name to Etobicoke's Humber Bay neighbourhood.
History
Prior to 1809 the bay ...
, the route merged onto the
Gardiner Expressway
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 ...
near Park Lawn Road, following it around the bay then through
Downtown Toronto
Downtown Toronto is the main central business district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located entirely within the district of Old Toronto, it is approximately 16.6 square kilometres in area, bounded by Bloor Street to the northeast and Dupont Stre ...
on an elevated roadway. Beyond the
Don Valley Parkway
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 run ...
interchange, the expressway descended to ground level, rejoining Lakeshore Boulevard near
Leslie Street
Leslie may refer to:
* Leslie (name), a name and list of people with the given name or surname, including fictional characters
Families
* Clan Leslie, a Scottish clan with the motto "grip fast"
* Leslie (Russian nobility), a Russian noble famil ...
. It continued east before curving north at
Woodbine Beach Woodbine Beach is the largest of the four beaches in the Beaches in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Located along Lake Shore Boulevard at the foot of Woodbine Avenue, it is next to Ashbridge's Bay and Kew-Balmy Beach. Woodbine beach is the westernmost b ...
and becoming
Woodbine Avenue
Woodbine Avenue consists of three north–south road sections in the Greater Toronto Area, Ontario, Canada:
# The southern section in Toronto begins near Ashbridges Bay on the shore of Lake Ontario, at Lake Shore Boulevard.The southern terminus ...
. It then turned northeast and followed Kingston Road into
Scarborough Scarborough or Scarboro may refer to:
People
* Scarborough (surname)
* Earl of Scarbrough
Places Australia
* Scarborough, Western Australia, suburb of Perth
* Scarborough, New South Wales, suburb of Wollongong
* Scarborough, Queensland, su ...
.
Approaching the
Highland Creek valley, Kingston Road split from
Highway 2A at the Highland Creek Overpass, travelling parallel to and north of it as it transitioned into Highway401. Highway2 crossed the
Rouge River into
Pickering and
Durham Region
The Regional Municipality of Durham (), informally referred to as Durham Region, is a regional municipality in Southern Ontario, Canada. Located east of Toronto and the Regional Municipality of York, Durham forms the east-end of the Greater Toron ...
, initially alongside Highway401 before departing farther north. It bisected
Pickering Village and passed through
Ajax
Ajax may refer to:
Greek mythology and tragedy
* Ajax the Great, a Greek mythological hero, son of King Telamon and Periboea
* Ajax the Lesser, a Greek mythological hero, son of Oileus, the king of Locris
* ''Ajax'' (play), by the ancient Greek ...
. Entering Whitby—where it intersected
Highway 12 at Brock Street—Kingston Road became Dundas Street, while in Oshawa it became King Street. The Highway split into a
one-way pair
A one-way pair, one-way couple, or couplet refers to that portion of a bi-directional traffic facilitysuch as a road, bus, streetcar, or light rail linewhere its opposing flows exist as two independent and roughly parallel facilities.
Descriptio ...
ing within the latter, with westbound traffic following the adjacent Bond Street. It continued eastward through
Courtice
Courtice () is a community in Ontario, Canada, about east of Toronto, within the Clarington, Ontario, Municipality of Clarington. Adjacent to Oshawa, Ontario, Oshawa, it is west of Bowmanville, Ontario, Bowmanville, which is also part of Clari ...
,
Bowmanville
Bowmanville is a town of approximately 40,000 people located in the Municipality of Clarington, Ontario, Clarington, Regional Municipality of Durham, Durham Region, Ontario, Canada. It is approximately east of Toronto, and east of Oshawa along ...
and
Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to:
*Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England
*Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England
*Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...
as it drifted closer to Highway401 and Lake Ontario; an interchange with
Highway 35/
115 was encountered immediately west of Newcastle.
After passing through
Newtonville, Highway2 entered
Northumberland County, passing through the communities of
Morrish and
Welcome
A welcome is a kind of greeting designed to introduce a person to a new place or situation, and to make them feel at ease. The term can similarly be used to describe the feeling of being accepted on the part of the new person.
In some context ...
before turning southeast and crossing Highway401 into
Port Hope and intersecting the southern end of
Highway 28. It continued near the shoreline of Lake Ontario through the town of
Cobourg
Cobourg ( ) is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Southern Ontario east of Toronto and east of Oshawa. It is the largest town in and seat of Northumberland County. Its nearest neighbour is Port Hope, to the west. It is ...
, where it intersected the southern end of
Highway 45, as well as the communities of
Grafton,
Wicklow
Wicklow ( ; ga, Cill Mhantáin , meaning 'church of the toothless one'; non, Víkingaló) is the county town of County Wicklow in Ireland. It is located south of Dublin on the east coast of the island. According to the 2016 census, it has ...
,
Colborne and
Salem. At the town of
Brighton
Brighton () is a seaside resort and one of the two main areas of the City of Brighton and Hove in the county of East Sussex, England. It is located south of London.
Archaeological evidence of settlement in the area dates back to the Bronze A ...
, where it intersected the southern end of
Highway 30, the highway entered
Hastings County
Hastings County is located in the province of Ontario, Canada. Geographically, it is located on the border of Eastern Ontario and Central Ontario. Hastings County is the second-largest county in Ontario, after Renfrew County, and its county ...
and moved inland from Lake Ontario. In
Trenton, the route crossed the
Trent–Severn Waterway
The Trent–Severn Waterway is a canal route connecting Lake Ontario at Trenton to Georgian Bay, Lake Huron, at Port Severn. Its major natural waterways include the Trent River, Otonabee River, Kawartha Lakes, Lake Simcoe, Lake Couchiching ...
, intersected
Highway 33, and began to travel along the northern shoreline of the
Bay of Quinte
The Bay of Quinte () is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of ...
.
Continuing northeast, Highway2 passed south of
CFB Trenton
Canadian Forces Base Trenton (also CFB Trenton), formerly RCAF Station Trenton, is a Canadian Forces base located within the city of Quinte West, Ontario. It is operated as an air force base by the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and is the hu ...
and through the community of
Bayside before travelling through the city of
Belleville, where it intersected both
Highway 62 and
Highway 37. After passing thorugh the communities of
Shannonville and
Marysville, it turned south and bisected the
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory
Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory is the main First Nation reserve of the Mohawks of the Bay of Quinte First Nation. The territory is located in Ontario east of Belleville on the Bay of Quinte. Tyendinaga is located near the site of the former Mohawk ...
. Highway2 turned east at an intersection with
Highway 49 and travelled through
Deseronto
Deseronto is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, in Hastings County, located at the mouth of the Napanee River on the shore of the Bay of Quinte, on the northern side of Lake Ontario.
The town was named for Captain John Deseronto, a n ...
, after which it entered
Lennox and Addington County
Lennox and Addington County is a county and census division of the Canadian province of Ontario. The county seat is Greater Napanee. It is located in the subregion of Southern Ontario named Eastern Ontario.
Around the middle of the 19th century, ...
. At
Napanee
Greater Napanee is a town in Eastern Ontario, southeastern Ontario, Canada, approximately west of Kingston, Ontario, Kingston and the county seat of Lennox and Addington County. It is located on the eastern end of the Bay of Quinte. Greater Nap ...
, the highway met the southern terminus of
Highway 41 then travelled through the communities of
Morven,
Odessa
Odesa (also spelled Odessa) is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. The city is also the administrativ ...
and
Westbrook before entering Kingston.
Within Kingston, Highway2 followed
Princess Street and intersected
Highway 38 and Highway33, crossed the
Cataraqui River
The Cataraqui River ( ) forms the lower portion of the Rideau Canal and drains into Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario. The name is taken from the original name for Kingston, Ontario; its exact meaning, however, is undetermined. Early maps showed ...
and
Rideau Canal
The Rideau Canal, also known unofficially as the Rideau Waterway, connects Canada's capital city of Ottawa, Ontario, to Lake Ontario and the Saint Lawrence River at Kingston. It is 202 kilometres long. The name ''Rideau'', French for "curtain", ...
on the
La Salle Causeway
The La Salle Causeway is a causeway that allows Highway 2 to cross the Cataraqui River (the southern entrance of the Rideau Canal) at Kingston, Ontario. The causeway separates Kingston's inner and outer harbours. Construction of the causeway was ...
, then intersected the southern end of
Highway 15 near
CFB Kingston
Canadian Forces Base Kingston (also CFB Kingston) is a Canadian Forces Base operated by the Canadian Army located in Kingston, Ontario.
History
The Barriefield Military Camp, commonly called Camp Barriefield, was established as a military ba ...
. For the remainder of its length, the highway followed close to or along the northern shoreline of the
St. Lawrence River
The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...
. Travelling northeast from Kingston, Highway2 passed through the communities of
Barriefield,
Ravensview
Ravensview is a rural community within the greater city of Kingston, Ontario, Canada. It is located east of the urbanized part of the city along old Highway 2. To the west of the community is CFB Kingston, and to the south is the St. Lawrence Rive ...
and
Pitts Ferry before reaching Gananoque and intersected the southern terminus of
Highway 32.
By 1997, the portion of Highway2 between the interchanges at Exit648 east of Gananoque and Exit687 west of
Brockville
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It i ...
along Highway401 was maintained by the
United Counties of Leeds and Grenville
The United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, commonly known as Leeds and Grenville, is a county in Ontario, Canada, in the Eastern Ontario subregion of Southern Ontario. It fronts on the Saint Lawrence River and the international boundary between ...
,
serving the communities of
Wilstead
Wilstead is a village and civil parish in Bedfordshire, England, just off the A6 Bedford to Luton road, about five miles south of Bedford town centre, and within the Borough of Bedford. The name of the village has been spelled in many differ ...
,
Mallorytown and
Butternut Bay. The highway intersected
Highway 29 at
Brockville
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It i ...
, then passed through the communities of
Maitland
Maitland is an English and Scottish surname. It arrived in Britain after the Norman conquest of 1066. There are two theories about its source. It is either a nickname reference to "bad temper/disposition" (Old French, ''Maltalent''; Anglo Norm ...
,
Prescott and
Johnstown, intersecting the southern end of
Highway 16 at the latter. It passed through
Cardinal
Cardinal or The Cardinal may refer to:
Animals
* Cardinal (bird) or Cardinalidae, a family of North and South American birds
**''Cardinalis'', genus of cardinal in the family Cardinalidae
**''Cardinalis cardinalis'', or northern cardinal, the ...
, as well as the
Lost Villages relocated towns of
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
,
Morrisburg—where it intersected
Highway 31—
Ingleside and
Long Sault
Long Sault was a rapid in the St. Lawrence River upstream and west of Cornwall, Ontario. ''Sault'' is the archaic spelling of the French word ''saut'', meaning rapids.
The Long Sault created a navigation barrier along the river for much of its ...
before entering Cornwall. It met the southern terminus of
Highway 138 and continued northeast through the communities of
Glen Walter and
Summerstown. At
Lancaster—the final notable community along Highway2—the route met
Highway 34, and shortly thereafter crossed into Quebec.
Current routes
Despite being decommissioned as a provincial highway in the 1990s, almost the entirety of the former highway remains driveable, and is now maintained by the various counties, regions, and cities through which it passes. The various sections have the following designations, from west to east:
History
Highway 2 was the first roadway assumed under the maintenance of the
Department of Public Highways (today's Ministry of Transportation of Ontario). The section from the
Rouge River to Smith's Creek, now Port Hope, was inaugurated on August 21, 1917, as ''The Provincial Highway''. On June 7, 1918, the designation was extended east approximately to the Quebec border.
Footpaths
![KingstonRd1830](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/ba/KingstonRd1830.jpeg)
The forerunners to Highway 2 are numerous paths constructed during the colonization of Ontario. While some portions may have existed as trails created by Indigenous peoples for hundreds of years, the first recorded construction along what would become Highway 2 was in late October 1793, when Captain Smith and 100
Queen's Rangers
The Queen's Rangers, also known as the Queen's American Rangers, and later Simcoe's Rangers, were a Loyalist military unit of the American Revolutionary War. Formed in 1776, they were named for Queen Charlotte, consort of George III. The Queen' ...
returned from carving ''The Governor's Road'' through the thick forests between
Dundas Dundas may refer to:
Places
Australia
* Dundas, New South Wales
* Dundas, Queensland, a locality in the Somerset Region
* Dundas, Tasmania
* Dundas, Western Australia
* Fort Dundas, a settlement in the Northern Territory 1824–1828
* Shire of ...
and the present location of
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
.
John Graves Simcoe
John Graves Simcoe (25 February 1752 – 26 October 1806) was a British Army general and the first lieutenant governor of Upper Canada from 1791 until 1796 in southern Ontario and the Drainage basin, watersheds of Georgian Bay and Lake Superior. ...
was given the task of defending
Upper Canada
The Province of Upper Canada (french: link=no, province du Haut-Canada) was a part of British Canada established in 1791 by the Kingdom of Great Britain, to govern the central third of the lands in British North America, formerly part of the ...
(present day Ontario) from the United States following the
American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolut ...
and with opening the territory to settlement. After establishing a "temporary" capital at
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
(present day Toronto), Simcoe ordered an inland route constructed between
Cootes Paradise
Cootes Paradise is a property of the Royal Botanical Gardens at the western end of Lake Ontario, and a remnant of the larger 3700 acre Dundas Marsh Crown Game Preserve established by the Province of Ontario in 1927. It is a 600 hectare environment ...
at the tip of
Lake Ontario
Lake Ontario is one of the five Great Lakes of North America. It is bounded on the north, west, and southwest by the Canadian province of Ontario, and on the south and east by the U.S. state of New York. The Canada–United States border sp ...
and his proposed capital of
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 ...
. By the spring of 1794, the road was extended as far as ''La Tranche'', now the
Thames River
The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the second-longest in the United Kingdom, after the R ...
, in London. In 1795, the path was connected with York.
Asa Danforth Jr., recently immigrated from the United States, was awarded the task, for which he would be compensated $90 per mile.
Beginning on June 5, 1799, the road was extended eastwards. Danforth was hired once more, and tasked with clearing a road east from York through the bush, with (preferably in the centre) cut to the ground. It was carved as far as Port Hope by December,
[Shragge p.13] and to the
Trent River soon after. Danforth's inspector and acting surveyor general
William Chewett declared the road "good" for use in the dead of winter, but "impassible" during the wet summers, when the path turned to a bottomless mud pit. He went on to suggest that rather than setting aside land for government officials which would never be occupied, the land be divided into lots for settlers who could then be tasked with
statute labour to maintain the path.
Danforth agreed, but the province insisted otherwise and only four settlers took up residence along the road between Toronto and Port Hope;
like many other paths of the day, it became a
quagmire.
Danforth's road did not always follow the same path as today's Kingston Road. Beginning near
Victoria Park Avenue
Victoria Park Avenue is a major north-south route in eastern Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the western border of Scarborough, separating it from Old Toronto, East York, and North York. The common nickname for it is VP or Vic Park.
History
Vi ...
and
Queen Street East
Queen Street is a major east-west thoroughfare in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It extends from Roncesvalles Avenue and King Street (Toronto), King Street in the west to Victoria Park Avenue in the east. Queen Street was the cartographic baseline f ...
, the road can be traced along Clonmore Drive,
Danforth Road
Danforth Avenue (informally also known as the Danforth) and Danforth Road are two historically-related arterial streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Danforth ''Avenue'' is an east-west street that begins in Old Toronto at the Prince Edward ...
, Painted Post Drive, Military Trail and Colonel Danforth Trail. Other sections of the former roadway exist near Port Hope and
Cobourg
Cobourg ( ) is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Southern Ontario east of Toronto and east of Oshawa. It is the largest town in and seat of Northumberland County. Its nearest neighbour is Port Hope, to the west. It is ...
, as well as within
Grafton. Otherwise the two roads more or less overlap until they reach the Trent River; beyond this point Danforth's road is continued (1802) on a
more southern route to reach the
Bay of Quinte
The Bay of Quinte () is a long, narrow bay shaped like the letter "Z" on the northern shore of Lake Ontario in the province of Ontario, Canada. It is just west of the head of the Saint Lawrence River that drains the Great Lakes into the Gulf of ...
at Stone Mills (now
Glenora). As the route straying through Scarborough avoided many of the settlers who had taken up residence near the lake, Danforth's road was bypassed by 1814 by William Cornell and Levi Annis. The ''Cornell Road'' (as it was known for a short time) shortened the journey from Victoria Park to West Hill, but remained mostly impassible like Danforth's route to the north. Finally succumbing to increasing pressures, the government raised funds to straighten the road and extend it through
Belleville to
Kingston. The work was completed by 1817 and the road renamed
''The Kingston Road''.
Downriver from Kingston, roads built along the
St. Lawrence
Saint Lawrence or Laurence ( la, Laurentius, lit. " laurelled"; 31 December AD 225 – 10 August 258) was one of the seven deacons of the city of Rome under Pope Sixtus II who were martyred in the persecution of the Christians that the Roma ...
for
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 ...
military use became a popular means to avoid rapids on the river by travelling overland.
Stagecoach and mail road
![Ontario Highway 2 - York Road - milestone Napanee 18 Kingston 5 - sign](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/ee/Ontario_Highway_2_-_York_Road_-_milestone_Napanee_18_Kingston_5_-_sign.jpg)
The creation of a
post road
A post road is a road designated for the transportation of postal mail. In past centuries, only major towns had a post house and the roads used by post riders or mail coaches to carry mail among them were particularly important ones or, due ...
extended year-round communication which had already existed on the
Chemin du Roy from
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the Communauté métrop ...
-
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...
westward, with the first stagecoaches reaching
York
York is a cathedral city with Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers Ouse and Foss in North Yorkshire, England. It is the historic county town of Yorkshire. The city has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a ...
(
Toronto
Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...
) in January 1817. This link proved economically vital to enterprises such as the
Bank of Montreal
The Bank of Montreal (BMO; french: Banque de Montréal, link=no) is a Canadian multinational investment bank and financial services company.
The bank was founded in Montreal, Quebec, in 1817 as Montreal Bank; while its head office remains in ...
, established 1817 with
branches
A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term ''twig'' usually ...
in Quebec, Montreal, Kingston and Toronto. The original coaches left Montreal every Monday and Thursday, arriving in Kingston two days later; the full Montreal-York run took a week.
As with earlier routes (such as the
Danforth Road
Danforth Avenue (informally also known as the Danforth) and Danforth Road are two historically-related arterial streets in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Danforth ''Avenue'' is an east-west street that begins in Old Toronto at the Prince Edward ...
),
coaching inn
The coaching inn (also coaching house or staging inn) was a vital part of Europe's inland transport infrastructure until the development of the railway, providing a resting point ( layover) for people and horses. The inn served the needs of tra ...
s prospered in every wayside village as the
stagecoach
A stagecoach is a four-wheeled public transport coach used to carry paying passengers and light packages on journeys long enough to need a change of horses. It is strongly sprung and generally drawn by four horses although some versions are draw ...
es made frequent stops for water, food or fresh
horse
The horse (''Equus ferus caballus'') is a domesticated, one-toed, hoofed mammal. It belongs to the taxonomic family Equidae and is one of two extant subspecies of ''Equus ferus''. The horse has evolved over the past 45 to 55 million y ...
s.
The original ''York Road'' (from Kingston) aka ''Kingston Road'' (from York) was initially little more than a muddy horse path. In 1829, a ferry crossing on the
Cataraqui River
The Cataraqui River ( ) forms the lower portion of the Rideau Canal and drains into Lake Ontario at Kingston, Ontario. The name is taken from the original name for Kingston, Ontario; its exact meaning, however, is undetermined. Early maps showed ...
in Kingston was replaced by a
draw bridge
A drawbridge or draw-bridge is a type of moveable bridge typically at the entrance to a castle or tower surrounded by a moat. In some forms of English, including American English, the word ''drawbridge'' commonly refers to all types of moveable ...
. In the 1830s, efforts were made by various
toll road
A toll road, also known as a turnpike or tollway, is a public or private road (almost always a controlled-access highway in the present day) for which a fee (or ''toll'') is assessed for passage. It is a form of road pricing typically implemented ...
operators to
macadam
Macadam is a type of road construction, pioneered by Scottish engineer John Loudon McAdam around 1820, in which crushed stone is placed in shallow, convex layers and compacted thoroughly. A binding layer of stone dust (crushed stone from the o ...
ise the trail as a gravel stagecoach road. On one section between
Cobourg
Cobourg ( ) is a town in the Canadian province of Ontario, located in Southern Ontario east of Toronto and east of Oshawa. It is the largest town in and seat of Northumberland County. Its nearest neighbour is Port Hope, to the west. It is ...
and
Port Hope the Cobourg Star on October 11, 1848, expressed "surprise and deep regret, that the Cobourg and Port Hope Road Company have placed a tollgate on their road, although only just gravelled" adding a week later "On Sunday night last, the Toll House and Gate on the Port Hope Road were burned to the ground. We regret to say that there is no doubt as to its having been done designedly as a very hard feeling has grown up against the Company, from their having exacted Toll before the road was properly packed. They might have known that no community would quietly submit to drive their teams and heavy loads through six inches of gravel and pay for the privilege. But we would not be understood to sanction the lawless proceeding which has taken place."
Despite these issues, this road would remain the principal means of winter travel until the
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rai ...
connected Montreal and Toronto in 1856. As intercity traffic formerly carried by the various stagecoach operators migrated to the iron horse, stagecoach roads faded to primarily local importance, carrying regional traffic.
This changed as the 20th century and the invention of the motorcar quickly made evident a need for better roads in the young but growing Dominion. The macadamised Lake Shore Road between Toronto and Hamilton, in poor condition with ongoing
erosion
Erosion is the action of surface processes (such as water flow or wind) that removes soil, rock, or dissolved material from one location on the Earth's crust, and then transports it to another location where it is deposited. Erosion is distin ...
, was the first section to be upgraded with concrete. The Toronto–Hamilton Highway, proposed in 1914, was opened along the lakeshore in November 1917. The Cataraqui Bridge, a toll
swing bridge
A swing bridge (or swing span bridge) is a movable bridge that has as its primary structural support a vertical locating pin and support ring, usually at or near to its center of gravity, about which the swing span (turning span) can then pi ...
, was replaced by the
La Salle Causeway
The La Salle Causeway is a causeway that allows Highway 2 to cross the Cataraqui River (the southern entrance of the Rideau Canal) at Kingston, Ontario. The causeway separates Kingston's inner and outer harbours. Construction of the causeway was ...
that same year.
In 1918, the province subsidised the county and municipal purchase of various former toll roads (
Brockville
Brockville, formerly Elizabethtown, is a city in Eastern Ontario, Canada, in the Thousand Islands region. Although it is the seat of the United Counties of Leeds and Grenville, it is politically Independent city, independent of the county. It i ...
-
Prescott,
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
-
Brantford
Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County, but is politically separate with ...
, Cobourg-Port Hope and Cobourg-Baltimore) to be improved and incorporated into the provincial highway system. Later acquisitions included a road from Cobourg to Grafton. As the roads became publicly owned, toll gates were removed.
In 1925, the
Galipeault Bridge
The Galipeault Bridge is a bridge on the western tip of the Island of Montreal, spanning the Ottawa River between Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Quebec, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue and L'Île-Perrot, Quebec, L'Île-Perrot, Quebec, Canada. It carries four ...
and
Taschereau Bridge
Taschereau Bridge is a bridge linking Pincourt, on Île Perrot, to Vaudreuil-Dorion, in the Vaudreuil-Soulanges RMC across the West Channel of the Ottawa River. The bridge was originally built in 1925, and was doubled in 1964, as part of the sa ...
, both adjacent to 1854 Grand Trunk Railway bridges which were the first fixed mainland links to Montreal, brought Route 2 onto Montreal Island.
Provincial highway
![Lakeshore Boulevard Winter 1925](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/40/Lakeshore_Boulevard_Winter_1925.jpg)
Ontario has published an official highway map since at least 1923, an era when many provincial highways were still gravel or unimproved road. To accommodate the passenger cars of the
Roaring Twenties
The Roaring Twenties, sometimes stylized as Roaring '20s, refers to the 1920s decade in music and fashion, as it happened in Western society and Western culture. It was a period of economic prosperity with a distinctive cultural edge in the U ...
, efforts to pave Ontario's roads had begun in earnest. The 1926 Official Road Map of Ontario boasted the "Highway from Windsor to the Quebec border, via London will all be paved at the end of the present year" and "a person will then be able to travel over 700 miles of pavement without a detour". Twenty-five years after the first provincial road improvement efforts, Ontario maps boastfully listed fifteen king's highways (numbered 2-17, as 1 and 13 were never assigned) and a growing network of county roads. While thousands of miles of dirt and gravel road still remained throughout the system, the
steel rails which crossed the region now had a credible rival in southern Ontario.
Beginning in 1935, Highway Minister
Thomas McQuesten
Thomas Baker McQuesten (June 30, 1882 – January 13, 1948) was a politician in Ontario, Canada. He was a Liberal member of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario from 1934 to 1943 who represented the riding of Hamilton—Wentworth. He served as a ...
applied the concept of a
second roadway to several projects along Highway 2:
a stretch west of Brockville,
a stretch from
Woodstock
Woodstock Music and Art Fair, commonly referred to as Woodstock, was a music festival held during August 15–18, 1969, on Max Yasgur's dairy farm in Bethel, New York, United States, southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, Woodstock. ...
eastward,
and a section between
Birchmount Road to east of
Morningside Avenue
Morningside Avenue is a suburban arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is entirely within Scarborough, running north by north-west from the Scarborough Bluffs overlooking Lake Ontario to the eastern terminus of McNicoll Avenue near the ...
in
Scarborough Township.
When widening in Scarborough reached the
Highland Creek ravine in 1936, east of Morningside, the Department of Highways began construction on a second bridge over the large valley (the original having been constructed as a bypass of the former alignment through
West Hill in 1919). From here the highway was constructed on a new alignment to Oshawa, avoiding construction on the congested Highway 2.
[Shragge pp. 93–94] As
grading and bridge construction neared completion between Highland Creek and Ritson Road in September 1939,
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
broke out and gradually money was siphoned from highway construction to the war effort.
![Highway 2 near Brockville, Ontario, Canada - 1952](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/19/Highway_2_near_Brockville%2C_Ontario%2C_Canada_-_1952.jpg)
The wartime rationing of the 1940s soon gave way to the fifties
neon
Neon is a chemical element with the symbol Ne and atomic number 10. It is a noble gas. Neon is a colorless, odorless, inert monatomic gas under standard conditions, with about two-thirds the density of air. It was discovered (along with krypton ...
era of growing prosperity, increased vehicle ownership and annual paid vacations. Service stations, diners,
motel
A motel, also known as a motor hotel, motor inn or motor lodge, is a hotel designed for motorists, usually having each room entered directly from the parking area for motor vehicles rather than through a central lobby. Entering dictionaries ...
s and
tourist-related establishments were proliferating on long strips of highway such as
Toronto's Lakeshore Boulevard and Kingston Road to accommodate the growing number of travellers.
Increased traffic initially led to a construction boom, but soon the most congested sections were among the first candidates to be bypassed by
freeway
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 ...
. By 1955, businesspeople along the north shore of
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 ...
were organising efforts to promote tourism on Highways 2 and
3, both of which stood to lose traffic upon the construction of
Highway 401
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 provin ...
. In 1956, the 401 provided a continuous Toronto Bypass from Weston to
Oshawa
Oshawa ( , also ; 2021 population 175,383; CMA 415,311) is a city in Ontario, Canada, on the Lake Ontario shoreline. It lies in Southern Ontario, approximately east of Downtown Toronto. It is commonly viewed as the eastern anchor of the G ...
.
A portion of the highway in the area of
Morrisburg was permanently submerged by the creation of the
St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958. The highway was rebuilt along a
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 ...
right-of-way
Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another.
A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...
in the area to bypass the flooded region. The town of
Iroquois
The Iroquois ( or ), officially the Haudenosaunee ( meaning "people of the longhouse"), are an Iroquoian-speaking confederacy of First Nations peoples in northeast North America/ Turtle Island. They were known during the colonial years to ...
was also flooded, but was relocated 1.5 kilometres north rather than abandoned. This event led to the nickname of ''
The Lost Villages
The Lost Villages were ten communities (nine conventional villages and a populated island) in the Canadian province of Ontario, in the former townships of Cornwall and Osnabruck (now South Stormont) near Cornwall, which were permanently sub ...
'' for a number of communities in the area.
Countless roadside motels from Windsor to Montreal were bypassed in the 1960s, with the 401 freeway completed in 1968. Growing hotel chains built new facilities near the 401 offramps, saturating the market in some areas. By the 1980s, Toronto's portion of the
Kingston Road was in steep decline. Some motels were used to shelter homeless or refugee populations, others were simply demolished.
The section of Highway 2 between Woodstock and
Ancaster (today a part of Hamilton) was not bypassed by 401 (which followed a more northerly corridor to serve
Kitchener-
Waterloo and
Guelph
Guelph ( ; 2021 Canadian Census population 143,740) is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada. Known as "The Royal City", Guelph is roughly east of Kitchener and west of Downtown Toronto, at the intersection of Highway 6, Highway 7 and Wel ...
), but was ultimately bypassed by
Highway 403
The following highways are numbered 403:
Canada
* Manitoba Provincial Road 403
* Newfoundland and Labrador Route 403
* Highway 403 (Ontario)
Costa Rica
* National Route 403
Croatia
* D403 road
Hungary
* Main road 403 (Hungary)
Japan
* Jap ...
. As the
main street in many communities Highway 2 remained busy with stop-and-go local traffic, sustaining countless shopkeepers and
restaurateur
A restaurateur is a person who opens and runs restaurants professionally. Although over time the term has come to describe any person who owns a restaurant, traditionally it refers to a highly skilled professional who is proficient in all aspec ...
s but offering little comfort to independent tourist motels. Outside urban areas, numerous former service stations were converted to other uses,
demolished or abandoned.
The last section from Ancaster to
Brantford
Brantford (Canada 2021 Census, 2021 population: 104,688) is a city in Ontario, Canada, founded on the Grand River (Ontario), Grand River in Southwestern Ontario. It is surrounded by County of Brant, Brant County, but is politically separate with ...
, was bypassed on August 15, 1997.
On January 1, 1998, most of the former length of Highway 2 was ''downloaded'', transferring the highway from provincial responsibility to local counties or
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 ...
. The route lost its King's Highway designation in the process, along with much of its visibility on printed Ontario maps. Many Ontario highways which originally ended at Highway 2 (as the backbone of Ontario's highway system) were truncated or simply
decommissioned, most often becoming county roads.
One token provincially maintained section of Highway 2 remains east of Gananoque; this section remains provincially maintained because the
Thousand Islands Parkway
The Thousand Islands Parkway (often written as 1000 Islands Parkway) is a scenic parkway in the Canadian province of Ontario. It extends easterly from an interchange with Highway 401 in Gananoque for approximately to rejoin Highway401 nea ...
does not have a complete interchange with Highway 401, meaning that some drivers must use the Highway 2 interchange to transfer between the two roads.
Major intersections
The following table lists the major cities along Highway 2, as originally noted on mileage charts included with Ontario's official road maps. These 1920s figures are based on the original 544.5 mile routing through
Aultsville and
Moulinette, Ontario
Moulinette is an underwater ghost town in the Canadian province of Ontario. It is one of Ontario's Lost Villages, which were permanently flooded by the creation of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958. Families and businesses in Moulinette were move ...
.
Various changes to the routing caused the length to vary between 540 and 544 miles between the initial paving of the highway in 1926 and its decertification in 1998. While the route remains drivable for its entire length, officially only a 1.1 km stub currently remains under provincial control.
See also
*
Heritage Highway
References
;Footnotes
;Bibliography
*
*
*
{{Ontario King's Highways
002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to:
Fiction
*002, fictional British 00 Agent
*''002 Operazione Luna'',
*1965 Italian film
*Zero Two, a ''Darling in the Franxx'' character
Airports
*0O2, Baker Airport
*O02, Nervino Airport
Astronomy
*1996 ...
002 002, 0O2, O02, OO2, or 002 may refer to:
Fiction
*002, fictional British 00 Agent
*''002 Operazione Luna'',
*1965 Italian film
*Zero Two, a ''Darling in the Franxx'' character
Airports
*0O2, Baker Airport
*O02, Nervino Airport
Astronomy
*1996 ...
Transport in Cobourg
Ingersoll, Ontario
Transport in Quinte West
Roads in London, Ontario
Roads in Hamilton, Ontario
Roads in Mississauga
Transport in Brantford
Transport in Brockville
Transport in Burlington, Ontario
Roads in Chatham-Kent
Transport in Clarington
Transport in Cornwall, Ontario
Transport in Kingston, Ontario
Transport in Oakville, Ontario
Transport in Oshawa
Transport in Whitby, Ontario
Toronto highways
Transport in Woodstock, Ontario