The Connecting Link program is a provincial subsidy provided to municipalities to assist with road construction, maintenance and repairs 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 Ca ...

. Roads which are designated as ''connecting links'' form the portions of provincial highways through built-up communities which are not owned by the

Ministry of Transportation A ministry of transport or transportation is a ministry responsible for transportation within a country. It usually is administered by the ''minister for transport''. The term is also sometimes applied to the departments or other government ag ...

(MTO). Connecting links are governed by several regulations, including section 144, subsection 31.1 of the

Highway Traffic Act The ''Highway Traffic Act'' (HTA) (the Act) is legislation in Ontario, Canada, which regulates the licensing of vehicles, classification of traffic offences, administration of loads, classification of vehicles and other transport-related issues ...

and section 21 of the

Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociological concept of the ''Öffentlichkei ...

. While the road is under local control and can be modified to their needs, extensions and traffic signals require the approval of the MTO to be constructed. The Connecting Link program was established in 1927. Today, of roadway in 77 municipalities are maintained under the program. These links cross 70 bridges also maintained under the program. In return for that particular road being downloaded, the town or county receives money and assistance in maintaining it, and is able to still sign and list it as a

provincial highway Numbered highways in Canada are split by province, and a majority are maintained by their province or territory transportation department. All highways in Canada are numbered except for three in the Northwest Territories, one in Alberta, one in O ...

, though not all connecting links are signed as provincial highways. Some connecting links, however, were never provincial highways at all, but rather county or regional roads, or even local streets that the town or city has assistance in maintaining. During the large-scale

downloading In computer networks, download means to ''receive'' data from a remote system, typically a server such as a web server, an FTP server, an email server, or other similar system. This contrasts with uploading, where data is ''sent to'' a remote ...

of many provincial highways in 1997, many connecting links were repealed when their parent highways were decommissioned. However, in some cases, where a highway terminated in a city, only the connecting links through the urbanized areas were repealed, while the rest of the highway remained under provincial jurisdiction. An example of this was Highway 10 through

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 ...

and

Brampton Brampton ( or ) is a city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario. Brampton is a city in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a List of municipalities in Ontario#Lower-tier municipalities, lower-tier municipalit ...

. In one unique case, Highway 11A, the entire highway was decommissioned as a result of it being a connecting link for its full length. Most connecting links are busy municipal or county roads that were once provincial highways, and are designated by small yellow squares or diamonds with the text "C/L" or "CL" on them at their start and end termini. These are similar to, but not always related to 7000-series highways.

Current links

The following table lists the current connecting links in the province by highway.

References

External links

* {{Ontario numbered roads Connecting Link

Current links

See also

References

External links