Route Description
The multiplex of Highway 7 and Highway 8 enters the city of Kitchener as a controlled-access freeway from the west; it takes on the name Conestoga Parkway at the Trussler Road exit at the western edge of the city. The Parkway (and the multiplex) continues east until Highway 8 (the Freeport Diversion) branches off toward the southeast via an interchange. At this point, the Conestoga Parkway turns northward and becomes Highway 7.
At the Victoria Street exit, the Parkway sheds the Highway 7 designation and becomes Highway 85 (which had been known as Highway 86 until May 1, 2003). It continues through the city of Waterloo towards St. Jacobs, where the freeway alignment ends and becomes Regional Road 85, or Arthur Street South.
Note that the Parkway is merely a controlled-access portion of the various numbered highways, all of which continue for some distance as open-access highways beyond the freeway section. Thus, the freeway has the distinction of being one of the few Ontario-maintained freeways not numbered according to the 400-Series Highway network, even though it is busier and wider than many rural 400-series highways, because the freeway upgrade has joined together only parts of existing routes. In comparison, the 400-series highways are intended to be full freeways for their entire length.
The speed limit on the Conestoga Parkway is 90 km/h (55 mph). It was previously 100 km/h (62 mph), but was lowered due to collisions across the median. Highway 7/8 between Courtland Avenue and Fischer-Hallman Road has an abnormally narrow median, and overpasses are single structures with simple curbs as median dividers instead of the usual Jersey barrier or Ontario tall-wall. The portion of Highway 7/8 (from Trussler Road to Wilmot Centre Road/Foundry Street) which was converted into a freeway in the 1990s does not have this deficiency, nor do the portions of the Parkway signed as Highways 7 and 85.
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