History
The route of former Highway 18 is far different from its original one (at 54.9 km in length), which was commissioned in 1930. It was supposed to be an "alternate route" to Highway 2 from Windsor to Tilbury, but was much more direct, so Highway 2 was re-aligned along Highway 18's path. In turn, Highway 18 was extended to travel from Windsor to Amherstburg and Leamington before Highway 2 absorbed its former path from Windsor to Tilbury.
The new Windsor-Amherstburg-Leamington alignment was 79 km in length, and was almost entirely paved. There was one large gap of gravel from Amherstburg to Kingsville. The road started at Highway 3A (Later to become the Dougall Avenue Highway 3B designation) at the entrance of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, and ran along a huge loop along the western and southern edges of Essex County, to meet back up with Highway 3 in Leamington.
By 1935, Highway 18 was paved between Harrow and Kingsville, and from Amherstburg to Malden Center. The final gap of gravel was from Malden Center to Kingsville, and that was paved in 1937. The highway was gradually widened to accommodate rising traffic volumes, mainly from Amherstburg to Windsor.
In 1982, the E.C. Row Expressway was extended from Huron Church Road in Windsor, west to Ojibway Parkway (Highway 18). During the construction of the E. C. Row Expressway in the 1960s and 1970s, the road was upgraded to four lanes wide (undivided, and with residential and business accesses), as a temporary measure to see a potential extension of E.C. Row built all the way to Amherstburg. This never materialised, however, and the expressway simply feeds onto Ojibway Parkway and County Road 20.
Before being extended along the entire routing of Highway 18, Essex County Road 20 travelled from Erie Street (Highway 77) in downtown Leamington, for 7 km due-east along Seacliff Drive, before terminating at the intersection with County Road 37 (both roads share the intersection as their termini) near Hillman Marsh. West of the intersection with Erie Street, was Highway 18.
Read more about this topic: Ontario Highway 18
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“It takes a great deal of history to produce a little literature.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“We have need of history in its entirety, not to fall back into it, but to see if we can escape from it.”
—José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955)
“No one can understand Paris and its history who does not understand that its fierceness is the balance and justification of its frivolity. It is called a city of pleasure; but it may also very specially be called a city of pain. The crown of roses is also a crown of thorns. Its people are too prone to hurt others, but quite ready also to hurt themselves. They are martyrs for religion, they are martyrs for irreligion; they are even martyrs for immorality.”
—Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874–1936)