Ontario Highway 88 - Designation

Designation

When the portion of the plank road that connected Holland Landing and Bradford was seen as a necessity for a transportation route for high traffic in the 1920s, it was converted into a portion of Highway 11 that connected Toronto with northern Ontario. The old plank road that ran from Holland Landing to Bathurst Street was widened and turned into a major road while the rest was shifted about 20– 30 meters south. This was due to poor terrain to expand the road on the other side of the railway tracks. Because of this transfer, there has been a large expansion of this road even to this day.

As the 1920s continued, there was no real necessity to continue to expand the remaining portion of the plank road from Bradford to Bond Head as it was only a hamlet. However, in 1927 there was concern about how to connect Highways 11 and 27, because the only other significant highway connection was Highway 9, which was nearly 15 kilometers south and only a county road where Highway 89 would later be to extended to Fennells Corner. As well, with the newly designed and proposed Toronto-Barrie Highway (later known as the Highway 400, there would be a need for a legitimate and traffic-efficient road for automobiles to travel to Bradford and Bond Head. It wasn't until the 1930s that the government saw the great need for more highways to be built across Ontario. And in 1938, Highway 88 was finally born and designated. It had one end at Highway 11 in downtown Bradford and the other at Highway 27 in Bond Head. The Highway was a two-lane paved road, and did not have a great deal of development except in the Bradford area where it was known as Holland Street.