E. C. Row Expressway

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The E.C. Row Expressway is an isolated freeway serving the central portion of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It runs generally east-west through the city, near its airport and various automotive manufacturing plants, among other areas. It is approximately 15 km (9.5 miles) long. The freeway was formerly part of Highway 2 but it was downloaded to municipal authorities in 1998 when Highway 2 was almost eliminated in its entirety. The speed limit is 100 km/h (65 mph).

Though it allows for easy travel across the city, it does not connect directly to Detroit, Michigan; the Ambassador Bridge and Detroit-Windsor Tunnel must be accessed by city streets. Similarly, Highway 401, which leads eastward out of town, also has no direct connection to the E.C. Row.

For many years after Highway 2 was downloaded to municipal and county authorities in Ontario, E.C. Row Expressway was a city-owned and city-repaired road. In 2003, the Windsor Star reported that the Province of Ontario would assume responsibility of the expressway once more, and lists it having the secret designation of Highway 7187. (Source: [1])

The expressway is named after E. C. Row, the former president of Chrysler Canada.

1 Original Plans
2 Pros and Cons
- 2.1 Pros
- 2.2 Cons
3 List of exits
4 Notes
5 External links
6 Sources

[edit] Original Plans

The original plans for the Expressway (in 1969, at least) were for it to travel from current County Road 22, heading west along the southern edge of Belle River, Ontario and Tecumseh, Ontario, meeting up with the current two-lane freeway alignment just east of Puce, Ontario, continuing as a freeway (without traffic lights at intersections, but with interchanges), and south through LaSalle, Ontario down to just north of Amherstburg, Ontario. Due to costs and chronic labour strikes from the construction contractors, the last section (from Ojibway Parkway to Huron Church Road) opened in 1986, and is the only part of the freeway (other than from Lauzon Parkway east to Banwell Road) that is up to proper 400-Series Highway standards. The road also experiences routine traffic jams, due to having only two lanes in both directions, while the original plan hand three lanes, plus cement median (four lanes from just east of Howard Avenue, to just west of Dominion Boulevard).

[edit] Pros and Cons

Although the freeway does perform its job well of keeping crosstown and cross-county traffic off the main streets in Windsor, it sadly has its own safety issues.

[edit] Pros

Speed limit of 100 km/h (60 mph), no traffic lights between Banwell Road (East End) and Ojibway Parkway (West End)
Acts as a semi-bypass of the city
Diverts much truck traffic from using Wyandotte Street or Tecumseh Road

[edit] Cons

Terrible design standards, cloverleaf interchanges, weaving, rusted guardrails
Many deaths due to weaving (from interchanges being spaced MUCH too close together
Many people say the road was out-dated before it was designed, and even un-necessary as it is too close to the city center, or that it was out-dated shortly after completion.
The biggest point against this freeway's popularity is the popular conception that this road is in the Guinness Book of World Records for the world's shortest freeway per cost per capita use (people using it). The most popular way of saying it is "it took 16 years to build a 16-kilometre long road, and in 16 days, it fell apart".

[edit] List of exits

Kilometre Post^†	Intersecting Roads
1	Matchette Road (westbound only)
2	Highway 3, Huron Church Road
3	Dominion Boulevard
4A	Dougall Avenue
4B	Howard Avenue
6	Central Avenue, Walker Road
8	Jefferson Boulevard (eastbound only)
9	Essex County Road 117, Lauzon Parkway
10	Essex County Road 43, Banwell Road (at-grade intersection with traffic lights)

Exits are not officially numbered.

At Banwell Road, the freeway ends and continues as Essex County Road 22, a major arterial roadway with at-grade intersections and traffic lights. The grass median ends at Lesperance Road; the road narrows to two lanes east of Manning Road (Essex County Road 19).

[edit] Notes

One kilometre west of Matchette Road, there is a light-controlled intersection with Ojibway Parkway/Sandwich Street.

Dougall Avenue lost the designation of Ontario Provincial Highway 3B, and was formally decommissioned in 1998. It is now known as Dougall Avenue and Dougall Parkway (from Howard Avenue Interchange to Highway 401). (From Christopher J Bessert's article on Highway 3B)