History
Planning for Highway 406 began in early 1959, when Minister of Highways Fred M. Cass presented the Ontario Roads and Streets report to the Ontario Legislative Assembly on March 16, outlining highways needs for the province over 20 years. One of the planned routes was a freeway to link Highway 3 in Port Colborne with the QEW, travelling alongside the Welland Canal. By 1961, route studies and planning were well underway. Construction began in 1963; the first section, between Geneva Street and St. Davids Road, opened December 7, 1965. This was followed several years later by an extension south to Beaverdams Road, which opened November 21, 1969. During the early 1970s, the highway was extended south as a Super 2 to north of the Welland River, where it curved west along Merritt Road and became Highway 58. This extension, which included the Beaverdams Road interchange and a signalized intersection, was opened on June 30, 1971.
In 1977, construction began on the section of Highway 406 between Geneva Street and the QEW. This work included the construction of several large bridges over the widened ravine, a curving structure over Twelve Mile Creek, and the first Single-Point Urban Interchange (SPUI) in Ontario (the only other SPUI is located on Airport Parkway in Ottawa). The original design plans for Highway 406 called for this section to follow the creek valley the full distance to the QEW, interchanging with it east of Martindale Road. Instead, the alignment was moved west of the city. Realignments to several streets in St. Catharines were completed in advance of construction on overpasses, ramps and the bridges over Twelve Mile Creek; this work was finished in late 1983. Grading contracts were awarded in mid-1983 for the entire extension. Paving took place during the summer of 1984, and the route was opened to traffic in October 1984.
Further work to extend the future southbound lanes Highway 406 to East Main Street in Welland began during the fall of 1987, including an eastward extension of Woodlawn Road. Construction of the bridges that carry the extension over the Welland River and old canal began in mid-1988, and was completed during the fall of 1989. Work then began to grade and pave the Woodlawn Road Extension to Highway 406 and Highway 406 between there and East Main Street. The extension was completed by the mid-1990s.
Read more about this topic: Ontario Highway 406
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—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
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—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)