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Highway 401 Transit and Auto Tunnel

innsertnamehere said:
IIRC the rationale at the time was that the 4-prefix was meant to represent a 4-lane roadway.
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You know this is the kind of rabbit hole that some of us history hounds just can't pass up, once demolishing the holiday baking and candy is finished....

The transition to 400 highways happened roughly between late 1952 and early 1953.

At that time, the only such highways in operation were the "Barrie Highway" from Toronto to Barrie, and "highway 2A" from roughly Highway 27 to Scarborough.

A letter to the editor of the Toronto Star on 15 October 52 makes reference to the coming plan to rename the highways to 400-series.

The official MTO term that was adopted was "controlled access highway".

As late as February 1953, city newspapers were describing accidents and plans using the Highway 2A nomenclature - by April 1953 the term Highway 401 was in use in both news articles and newspaper classified ads.

I haven't found any formal announcement or document - there must have been these - but these fingers have only so much time to search. But it was certainly amusing reading old articles as Ontario drivers discovered that super-highways weren't an unmitigated blessing. Lots of accidents and complaints from neighbours.

- Paul

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crs1026 said:
You know this is the kind of rabbit hole that some of us history hounds just can't pass up, once demolishing the holiday baking and candy is finished....
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Wonderful work digging up this stuff. And so many rabbit holes one can fall into reading other stories in the paper.

I hadn't realized the 403 section from London to Burlington was part of the day one plan in 1952. "May take up to 10 years to complete" ... LOL. The final section between Brantford and Ancaster opened in 1997. Only 35 years late! I guess some things never change.
 
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The interesting context to the QEW retaining its naming is that while originally named for the first Queen Elizabeth, the second Queen was very much present in the public minds.... Princess Elizabeth and husband had toured Canada in the fall of 1951 and she assumed the throne in June 1952. The Royal Coronation ceremony was June 1953. So apart from that era's general attachment to the royalty, reversing the QEW naming in favour of a number would have been quite the hot topic in late 1952 had it been seriously pursued. I bet no one in Queens Park was willing to suggest that seriously.
I'd like to watch some of the more technocratic wayfinding and nomenclature junkies and self-appointed experts on UT travel back in time and try to argue that one. They might have ended up in the Tower.

- Paul
 
a couple of interesting notes in that - as @nfitz already stated, the 403 was planned very early but took a very long time to actually be completed. The portion which opened in 1997 was actually from Brantford to Ancaster however, not Burlington to Ancaster!

Also - notice that the route of the 403 was originally planned to run north of Dundas - this was overriden when the Chedoke Expressway was constructed in the 1960's on the 403's present routing.

Also interesting to see that there is a reason as to why Ontario does not have a Highway 1. MTO apparently reserved that for a potential Trans-Canada connection, despite the common perception that the QEW is in fact "Highway 1".

I do wonder why they never redesignated 17 as Highway 1 when it was completed in the 1960's as it functions as the primary Trans-Canada route today.
 
Gotta love old reporting styles.

The articles still really don't explain how they landed on the 400 series. The number of lanes sounds plausible. I have photos of parts of the early QEW that were two lane only.

Interesting about reserving 'Hwy 1' for use use on the TCH route. I had always understood that the province avoided a Hwy 1 designation as far back as the 1930s when highway numbering first became a thing to quell squabbling between towns who all wanted to be on Hwy 1.
 
crs1026 said:
The interesting context to the QEW retaining its naming is that while originally named for the first Queen Elizabeth, the second Queen was very much present in the public minds.... Princess Elizabeth and husband had toured Canada in the fall of 1951 and she assumed the throne in June 1952. The Royal Coronation ceremony was June 1953. So apart from that era's general attachment to the royalty, reversing the QEW naming in favour of a number would have been quite the hot topic in late 1952 had it been seriously pursued. I bet no one in Queens Park was willing to suggest that seriously.
I'd like to watch some of the more technocratic wayfinding and nomenclature junkies and self-appointed experts on UT travel back in time and try to argue that one. They might have ended up in the Tower.

- Paul
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Although, internally it is known as the 459 I believe.
 
JasonParis said:
Although, internally it is known as the 459 I believe.
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I am curious if there are any MTO people on this board. From my time there, nobody used 45x (451?*), and they used 1 is a number was needed in the field - which was required in the old days as an alphanumeric field was just too difficult a concept to imagine.
* - Cameron Bevers (https://www.thekingshighway.ca) website does mention the 451 though.
 
lenaitch said:
Gotta love old reporting styles.

The articles still really don't explain how they landed on the 400 series. The number of lanes sounds plausible. I have photos of parts of the early QEW that were two lane only.
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The logic is certainly there, considering that at the time I'm sure 4 lanes seemed like all there would ever need to be. Six lanes? Inconceivable. (Reminds me of the expensive 100 MB hard drive that I thought would never need upgrading.....)

The question then becomes, were the 500 and 600 series classifications designated at the same time? If so, the 4 might be more a pigeonhole that a designation based on lanes.

- Paul
 
MTO started planning for the 12-lane 401 through toronto maybe 5-7 years after the 400 designation was placed on the road.

The mega-401 we know today had its first sections opening only a decade after the bypass itself opened. The 4-lane 401 was rather short lived.
 
Bit of an aside, but if the 407 wasn't ETR, would the naming be better as follows for 403 and 413? (yes exit numbers would change, names are speculative, recognize 408 isn't in current 2051 horizon).
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jcam said:
Bit of an aside, but if the 407 wasn't ETR, would the naming be better as follows for 403 and 413? (yes exit numbers would change, names are speculative, recognize 408 isn't in current 2051 horizon).
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This is actually close to the original intent - 407ETR through Halton Region was originally intended to be the 403, with the 407 terminating at the QEW (instead of the 413). The 407 was never intended to extend almost to Hamilton.

The province built the 407ETR in the 1990's as a toll road to the 403 terminus in Mississauga. As a condition of the sale to 407ETR, the province sold the 403 extension right of way to 407ETR and required that they build the highway at no cost to the province (similar to the eastern end of 407ETR from Markham Road to Brock Road). These two stretches opened in 2002 and remain the only privately-constructed highways in the province to this day.
 
innsertnamehere said:
These two stretches opened in 2002 and remain the only privately-constructed highways in the province to this day.
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There must be other examples. The 80+ km Sultan Industrial Road comes to mind (leading in the west to Highway 667, which was numbered in the 1970s).
 
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