Kitchener-Cambridge
There is also another King Street in southern Kitchener that runs north-south. It originally began at Wilfred Avenue (a residential street) and ran southward into Cambridge, wedged in between the Freeport Diversion and Weber Street.
That road was initially part of the downtown King Street until the portion between Wilfred Avenue and Weber Street was used instead as the right-of-way for the Highway 8 Freeport Diversion freeway, with its terminus being redirected towards Weber Street. When the Diversion was completed in the late 1960s, in order to travel between the two segments of King Street, one had to use either the freeway's Fairway Road interchange or Weber Street and Montgomery Road.
South of Weber the street "resumed" again and continued to Cambridge, meeting up with the Freeport Diversion a second time at an at-grade Y-intersection, with the Freeport Diversion traffic being given priority. King Street continued on eastward as a divided at-grade expressway carrying the Highway 8 designation, south to Highway 401 and Cambridge. This road is often referred to as Old King Street or King East, in order to distinguish it from the downtown thoroughfare. King East provided a link between Highway 401 and the Freeport Diversion.
In 1987, the at-grade intersection was replaced with a two-ramp parclo interchange, when the freeway extension (secretly designated Highway 7187) of the Freeport Diversion was constructed to provide a direct freeway link to Highway 401 easterly to Toronto. Highway 401 eastbound traffic, however, continued to use King Street East to reach the Freeport Diversion.
In 2001, the Highway 401 exit signage at King Street East was changed from Highway 8 to Shantz Hill Road, as that section of Highway 8 had been downloaded from the province to municipal authorities in 1998. The Highway 8 designation was later given to the Freeport Diversion extension to reconnect it with Highway 401.
Read more about this topic: Waterloo Regional Road 15