Ontario's highway network has been rebuilt and rerouted so many times that the province is layered with abandoned road segments, bypassed alignments, and decommissioned routes. What is now a quiet country road may have once been the main highway between two cities. What looks like a dead-end lane disappearing into the bush may have been a through route a generation ago.
The story of Ontario's old highways is the story of how the province adapted to the automobile. Roads that were adequate for horse-drawn traffic were straightened and widened for cars. Routes that followed rivers and shorelines were replaced by more direct inland alignments. Two-lane highways were twinned or replaced by four-lane expressways. At each stage, the old road was left behind, often in remarkably good condition.
The King's Highway System
Ontario's provincial highway system was established in 1920, when the province took over responsibility for a network of major roads. Over the following decades, the system grew to include hundreds of routes reaching every corner of the province. But as standards changed and traffic increased, many of these routes were decommissioned, their numbers removed and responsibility transferred to counties or municipalities.
The largest wave of highway decommissioning came in 1997 and 1998, when the provincial government downloaded hundreds of kilometres of highway to local governments. Routes that had been provincial highways for decades suddenly became county roads, often without a corresponding increase in maintenance funding. Some of these downloaded highways have been well maintained. Others have deteriorated, their surfaces cracking and their shoulders eroding.
Bypassed Alignments
More interesting from an exploration perspective are the bypassed alignments, sections of road that were abandoned when a highway was straightened or rerouted. These can be found all over the province, but they are especially common in areas where the terrain made the original road winding or steep.
Highway 17, the Trans-Canada through the Ottawa Valley, has numerous bypassed sections. Where the modern highway cuts straight across a ridge, the old road winds around it, dropping down through a village that was once on the main route. Where a new bridge crosses a river in a single span, the old road descends to the water level and crosses on a narrow, weight-restricted bridge. Some of these old alignments are still paved and maintained as local roads. Others are gravel, or simply end in a barrier and a tangle of vegetation.
Old highway alignments often pass through terrain that the modern road bypasses entirely.
Roadside Relics
The businesses that served highway travelers have their own abandonment story. Motels, gas stations, diners, and tourist attractions that depended on through traffic were devastated by every rerouting and bypassing. Drive any former highway in Ontario and you will find the remains of these roadside businesses: boarded-up motels with their neon signs still standing, gas station canopies with pumps removed, restaurant buildings repurposed as storage or left empty.
The unusual roadside stops of the Ottawa Valley include a number of these relics. The valley's highways have been rerouted several times, and each rerouting left behind businesses that could not survive the loss of traffic.
Finding Old Highways
Topographic maps are the best tool for finding old highway alignments. Current maps show the modern road; older maps show previous routes. Comparing the two reveals where roads have been straightened, rerouted, or abandoned. Ontario's historical topographic maps are available through various online archives and are worth studying before a drive through any region.
On the ground, old alignments are often obvious. A road that suddenly narrows or becomes gravel may be following an old highway alignment. A gentle curve in a modern highway may have a sharper curve visible on the inside, now blocked by a barrier or overgrown with vegetation. In some places, the old pavement is still visible, cracked and heaved but unmistakably a former road.
The old bridges of the province are often the most dramatic evidence of former highway alignments. A bridge that seems overbuilt for the quiet road it serves may have once carried a provincial highway. A bridge abutment standing alone beside a river marks where the old road crossed before the new bridge was built upstream or downstream.