Highway 18 (Ontario)

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Kings Highway 18
Ojibway Parkway, Front Road, Highway #18, County Road 20, Seacliff Drive
Length:	79 km (49 mi)
Formed:	1930
Decomd.:	1998
Direction:	East/West
East end:	Highway 3 in Windsor
West end:	Highway 3 (Now CR 34)/Highway 77 (Now Erie St.) in Leamington, Ontario
Counties:	Essex County, Ontario
Major cities:	Windsor, LaSalle, Amherstburg, Malden Center, Harrow, Kingsville, Ruthven, Leamington, Ontario

Highway 18 is the longest former highway in Essex County, Ontario, and travels through the most communities.

1 History
2 End-to-End
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

Main Article: County Road 42 (Essex County, Ontario).

The route of former Kings 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. The 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 accomodate 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).

[edit] End-to-End

From here, it becomes very unclear and contradictory as to whether Highway 18 travelled east along E.C. Row to the Huron Church Road interchange, or north-west along Sandwich Parkway to Sandwich Street and Riverside Drive, to terminate at the foot of Ouellette Avenue (Highway 3B).

This was compounded by the fact that E.C. Row had the secret 7000-series highway designation of Highway 7087. The City of Windsor had assumed all control of Highway 18 (Ojibway Parkway) within its limits, which are north of Morton Drive, but since Highway 18 was signed along E.C. Row to Highway 3 in the period of 1993 to 1998 (Huron Church Road), it is assumed that this is its terminus.

When the government began downloading provincial highways to the individual counties, districts, regions, towns, and cities on April 1, 1997, the part of road between Ruthven and Leamington was decommissioned and re-designated as an extension of Essex CR 20. In return, Highway 18 was briefly re-routed along Essex County Road 45 (which was Highway 18B from 1937 to 1954, and then Highway 107 until 1970), to Highway 3 in Ruthven. This was a temporary measure, as the rest of the Highway was gone from the network as of January 1, 1998.

This road is now entirely designated as Essex County Road 20.