King's Highway 85, commonly referred to as Highway 85, is a
provincially maintained highway in the
Canadian
Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...
province 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 C ...
, connecting
Highway 7 to immediately north of the
Waterloo city limits. The highway, which is mostly
controlled-access
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 ...
, travels through the
Regional Municipality of Waterloo
The Regional Municipality of Waterloo (Waterloo Region or Region of Waterloo) is a metropolitan area of Southern Ontario, Canada. It contains the cities of Cambridge, Kitchener and Waterloo (KWC or Tri-Cities), and the townships of North Dumf ...
along the
Conestoga Parkway
The Conestoga Parkway, officially the Kitchener–Waterloo Expressway,
is a controlled-access highway in the Canadian province of Ontario, located entirely within the Regional Municipality of Waterloo. The route travels east and then north thr ...
from its
interchange with Highway 7, which continues south along the parkway, to an interchange with Regional Road 15 (King Street), where it continues as
Regional Road 85 to
St. Jacobs.
Prior to completion of the Conestoga Parkway through Waterloo, Highway 85 followed King Street north of Ottawa Street through Kitchener and Waterloo. Within the City of Waterloo, this former alignment is now maintained by the region as Regional Road 15. Within the city of Kitchener, the road is simply known as King Street. The parkway was constructed between 1968 and 1977. By 1980, Highway 85 was renumbered as
Highway 86, to improve the continuity of provincial route numbers. However, when the majority of Highway 86 was decommissioned in 1998, the remaining portion was soon renumbered as Highway 85 in 2003.
Route description
![Highway 85 entering Kitchener](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/Highway_85_entering_Kitchener.png)
Highway 85 begins in Kitchener at an interchange between the Conestoga Parkway and Victoria Street. At that interchange, Highway 7 exits the parkway, which from there northward on is Highway 85, and travels east on Victoria Street towards Guelph.
The divided freeway continues north, swerving left and right through suburban Kitchener. It first crosses under a
Via Rail
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...
line and then under Wellington Street, with which it has an interchange, after which it passes alongside the
Grand River. As it enters the neighbourhood of Bridgeport, which it divides in two, the route curves west, interchanges with Lancaster Street and crosses into Waterloo.
The highway begins to curve north, interchanging with Bridgeport Road. The highway crosses the Conestoga Creek as it interchanges with University Avenue, then gradually curves to the west. After an interchange with King Street, once the original routing of Highway 85, the route curves back to the north and interchanges with Northfield Drive. As it approaches the
rural–urban fringe of the tri-city area, the freeway interchanges with King Street a second time. Highway 85 ends at the north end of the ramps from King Street, as does the Conestoga Parkway. The divided freeway ends and the route become Waterloo Regional Road 85, which continues north to
St. Jacobs and
Elmira.
History
Highway 85 was originally assumed by the Department of Highways (DHO), the predecessor to today's
Ministry of Transportation of Ontario
The Ministry of Transportation (MTO) is the provincial ministry of the Government of Ontario that is responsible for transport infrastructure and related law in Ontario. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, when the ...
(MTO), during the mid-1930s. The existing Kitchener–Elmira Road was designated as Highway 85 on March 28, 1934.
Initially, the route began at the intersection of Queen Street and King Street in downtown Kitchener, and proceeded north along King Street through Waterloo and St. Jacobs. North of St. Jacobs, the highway followed the same route as modern Waterloo Regional Road 85 to Elmira, ending at Church Street in downtown Elmira.
Church Street itself would become Highway 86 several years later, on August 25, 1937, connecting Elmira and
Amberley,
and creating a short-lived common terminus between the two highways; Highway 86 was extended to Highway 7 near Guelph on April 13, 1938.
![Conestoga Parkway North](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/Conestoga_Parkway_North.png)
Highway 85 remained unchanged for several decades until the Conestoga Parkway was constructed during the late-1960s and early 1970s. Construction of the new expressway began in February 1966 near King Street in Kitchener;
however, construction of the section that is now Highway 85 did not begin until September 1968, when a C$5 million contract for the section between Frederick Street and Bridgeport Road was awarded.
Soon thereafter, a second contract for the section between Bridgeport Road and King Street in Waterloo was awarded.
On April 16, 1970, the Highway 85 designation was moved from King Street to the new Conestoga Parkway; King Street was consequently transferred to local jurisdiction.
Towards the end of the 1970s, construction began on a northward extension of the Conestoga Parkway from King Street to Northfield Drive; this was completed by 1977. By then, construction was underway on a two lane
bypass of St. Jacobs east of the original route, connecting with the Conestoga Parkway at Northfield Drive, then an
at-grade intersection.
By the end of 1977, this bypass was completed.
In 1975, the eastern section of Highway 86, from Elmira to Guelph, was
decommissioned, truncating the eastern terminus of it to the western terminus of Highway 85.
To provide a more direct routing between the two highways, a bypass of Elmira was constructed along what is now Listowel Road. By the end of 1979, Highway 86 was rerouted along this bypass, and the northern section of Highway 85 was decommissioned.
In 1980 or 1981, Highway 85 was renumbered as Highway 86, eliminating the designation temporarily and creating one continuous highway between Kitchener and
Amberley, on the shores of
Lake Huron.
On November 30, 1990, the Northfield Drive interchange was fully opened to traffic, eliminating a traffic signal from the northern end of the Conestoga Parkway. The speed limit on the parkway was lowered from to on January 10, 1994 following numerous cross-median collisions.
In 1998, during the
mass downloading of provincial highways to lower levels of government, the majority of Highway 86, from the Northfield Drive interchange to Amberley, was decommissioned.
The Regional Municipality of Waterloo subsequently designated the section north from Waterloo to Elmira as Regional Road 85.
Consequently, the remaining section of Highway 86, which exclusively followed the Conestoga Parkway, was renumbered as Highway 85 during the spring of 2003 to align the numbers and aid navigation.
Major intersections
References
External links
Highway 85 routeWaterloo Public Library 1954 image of King and Erb Streets in Waterloo with King's Highway 85 signage
{{Ontario King's Highways
085
Roads in the Regional Municipality of Waterloo