Simcoe County Road 8

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards.
Please help improve this article, especially its introduction, section layout, and relevant internal links. (help)

Simcoe County Road 8 or simply Canal Road is a major arterial road and shortcut from Highway 9 (Ontario) in Schomberg, Ontario to Highway 11 (Ontario) in Bradford-West Gwillimbury, Ontario.

[edit] Creation

Canal Road was created to service farmers in the Holland Marsh with a accessible road they could take to get to either end of the Marsh and to major highways. It was built on top of a dyke situated beside the drainage canal. The road was given an extremely low standard interchange with the Kings Highway 400. It was designed to accommodate the traffic coming into and out of the marsh. People are forced to come to a complete stop when approaching the highway and turn right. This then turns into a merging lane where drivers are forced to accelerate very quickly.

[edit] Safety

Canal Road continues to this day to become and even worse road than it already is. 17 people have died since the road opened due to plunging their car into the canal. The road continues to deterriorate as the canal widens. There are a very limited number of guard rails along the canal. Guard rails are very hard to install as the land between the road and canal is very soft and unstable.

[edit] 2006 Major Updates

In the winter of 2005, a woman and her child tragically plunged into the canal and were killed. This accident received very high media attention in Ontario and opened people up to the major problems with Canal Road. It has continued to serve as a shortcut to those commuting from the East with the 400 to Toronto. This has caused growing traffic. Immediately people began suggesting and even protesting the closure of the Interchange due to its cause of 17 deaths. The Minister of Transport issued a statment saying he could not close down the interchange with the 400 because it was vital. As well, he said his government was looking for new ways to upgrade the roads safety. Nearly 50 new signs were posted along Canal Road from Highway 9 to Highway 11 (for its entire length). Even two large electronic signs were installed temporarily on both exit ramp warning drivers to be extra cautious while driving. Furthermore, the speed limit was reduced from 60 km/h to 50 km/h.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../s/i/m/Simcoe_County_Road_8_8bb3.html"