Conestoga Parkway

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The Conestoga Parkway is a freeway in Waterloo Region, Ontario, Canada. It runs northeast/southwest through the cities of Kitchener and Waterloo. It is connected to the main east/west route Highway 401 via the Highway 8 Freeport Diversion freeway and King Street East.

[edit] Naming and description

It is numbered in three sections: the westernmost portion from Baden to the Highway 8 interchange is multiplexed as Highway 7/8; the central section from 8 to the Victoria Street exit is Highway 7; and the northeast portion, into Waterloo through to St. Jacobs is Highway 85. The highway number was changed from Highway 86 in 2003 and the new number technically starts slightly north of the King Street North exit, and ends at the Victoria Street exit, where it becomes Highway 7. The name Conestoga Parkway ends at Trussler Road, and continues as Highway 7/8. Where Highway 85 ends, in Waterloo, it turns into Arthur Street S., which leads into Elmira, and St.Jacobs. The Conestoga Parkway begins in St.Jacobs, just before the City of Waterloo border.

While it is officially known as the Conestoga Parkway, it is often referred to by locals as the Conestoga Expressway or simply The Expressway. The name no longer appears on signage, however, and is little known outside the immediate area.

Note that the Parkway is merely the expressway portion of the various numbered highways, all of which continue for some distance as open-access highways beyond the expressway section. Thus, the expressway has the distinction of being one of the few Ontario-maintained freeways not numbered according to the 400-Series Highway network, even though it is busier and wider than many rural 400-series highways, because the freeway upgrade put together only parts of existing routes. The 400-series highways are intended to be full freeways for their entire length.

The speed limit on the Conestoga Parkway is 90 km/h (55 mph). This is unusual for a provincially-maintained freeway in Ontario, but some sections are below the standards of 400-Series Highways.

[edit] Improvements

Highway 8 with the interchange with the Conestoga Parkway seen in the distance. The new concrete median barrier and retaining wall on the right side were part of a multiyear project to improve the capacity of the junction. Photographed from the Franklin Street overpass.

The parkway is one of the busiest roads in the region. It was completed as a four-lane freeway in the late 1960s, with the exception of the short eight-lane collector-express system serving Highway 7/Victoria Street and Wellington Street. The interchange between Highway 8 and the Conestoga Parkway was opened in 1970. Mainline traffic on Highway 8 could continue under the Conestoga, where the route defaults to King Street, to enter downtown Kitchener. The Conestoga east/north of this junction serves as a bypass of King Street.

At the time, the Conestoga Parkway and Highway 8 Freeport Diversion freeways were isolated from the 400-series highway network, as the Freeport Diversion ended at an at-grade Y-junction with King Street East. Traffic from the Freeport Diversion was treated as the mainline traffic at this interchange and King East continued to a cloverleaf interchange with Highway 401.

A direct freeway connection between Highway 401 and the Conestoga was made possible when a new bypass (secretly designated as Highway 7187, though signed as Highway 8) was opened in 1987; it featured a Y-junction with Highway 401 to serve traffic east of that junction. The cloverleaf interchange with the existing Highway 8 had several ramps realigned, and it continues to serve 401 traffic west of that junction.

In 1993, a four-lane extension to Baden was opened, linking up with an existing undivided four-lane expressway at New Hamburg.

Since the late 1990s, the Conestoga has undergone extensive reconstruction between Courtland Avenue and Lancaster Street, with the addition of an Ontario "tall-wall" concrete median barrier and high-mast lighting replacing the conventional mercury truss lights. The widening project resulted that stretch of the Parkway being expanded to at least six lanes by using the grass median, and eight lanes between Highway 8 and Victoria Street/Frederick Street by using the right-of-way afforded by the shoulders. In 2004, extensive improvements were completed around the former obsolete and bottlenecked "half-cloverleaf" junction with the freeway section of Highway 8, that links it to the 401. This included a new flyover semi-directional ramp from Conestoga westbound to Highway 8 eastbound, while the ramp in the opposite direction was realigned to allow it to carry two lanes of traffic at a higher speed.

An observation which may seem odd for those new to the highway is the stark difference in the congested, inefficient exit for Highway 7/Victoria Street, when compared with the high-capacity but underused Wellington Street exit just north of it. Both exits are served by a collector-express system. This is due to the 'foresight' that Highway 7 would be redirected as a controlled-access highway and attached to the existing Wellington Street interchange; these plans have languished for over 30 years and are still in the planning stages. Opposition has arisen due to the new alignment of Highway 7 passing through environmentally sensitive lands. The new Highway 7 freeway proposal linking up the Conestoga in Waterloo and the Hanlon Parkway in Guelph bypasses the existing Highway 7/Victoria Street. The plans also call for a complex 4-level interchange with the Conestoga Parkway and Wellington Street, a rarity outside of the Greater Toronto Area. Its $25 million cost represents a quarter of the $100 million budget for the total project, with the high cost partly due to the difficulty in land acquisition to accommodate the flyover ramps.

In addition to the proposed Highway 7 freeway between Waterloo and Guelph, the MTO has long term plans to extend the Conestoga Parkway (Highway 7/8) westward to Stratford, although that extension may not be known by the "Conestoga Parkway" name.

[edit] List of exits

The following is a list of exits along the parkway. The exits on Conestoga Parkway are not numbered, and likely never will be due to the multiple designations used, which would make it impossible to have consistent kilometre posts.

At this point, the divided freeway ends, and Highway 85 (formerly Highway 86 until 2003) begins to St.Jacobs.

[edit] See also

• List of Ontario expressways
• List of Ontario provincial highways
• 400-series highways

[edit] External links

• Highway 7 Images, including pictures of the Conestoga Parkway from Ontario Highways