E. C. Row Expressway

The E C Row Expressway is a municipal expressway in the Canadian city of Windsor, Ontario. It divides the city in half as it crosses it between the Ojibway Parkway in the west and Banwell Road in the east. The expressway is named after Ohio born Edward Charles Row, the president of Chrysler Canada between 1951 and 1956.^[1] Though it was formerly a part of Highway 2 and Highway 18, the province fully transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor on April 1, 1997.

The western half of the route is mostly surrounded by suburban residential developments, while the eastern half passes by airport and various automotive manufacturing plants, amongst other industrial, manufacturing and retail areas. The expressway is approximately 15.4 km (9.6 mi) long with a speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour (62 mph).

Though it allows for easy travel across the city, the E.C. Row Expressway does not connect to the United States; drivers can access the Ambassador Bridge via Huron Church Road, or the Detroit–Windsor tunnel via Dougall Parkway, which also provides the most direct access to Highway 401. This situation will change in the near future as the Windsor–Essex Parkway is constructed in the west end of the city. The parkway will extend Highway 401 to a new border crossing and will travel concurrently with the expressway from Huron Church Road to the Ojibway Parkway.

Route description

The E.C. Row Expressway begins at a signalized intersection with the Ojibway Parkway, curving gently from northeastward to eastward. It progresses east as a four lane controlled-access highway with a box beam median and grade-separated interchanges.

History

The history of the E.C. Row Expressway dates back to January 1963, when the City of Windsor and the Department of Highways released a report called The Windsor Area Transportation Study (WATS).^[2] One of the primary issues identified by the study was "a limited and inadequate street network in the east-west direction generally resulting from several railway barriers."^[3] Properties were purchased along E.C. Row Avenue and the Third Concession beginning in 1958 for what was then intended as a two lane road linking Highway 18 with Highway 39 (which became Highway 2 in 1970). However, with the release of WATS and the subsequent amalgamation in 1966 in which Windsor annexed portions of the surrounding townships, plans for an expressway along the corridor were first conceived.^[2] The original plans for the expressway dating back to 1969 were for it to travel from current County Road 22, heading west along the southern edge of Belle River and Tecumseh, meeting up with the current two-lane freeway alignment (Pike Creek Bypass) just east of Puce, continuing as a freeway (without traffic lights at intersections, but with interchanges), and south through Lasalle down to just north of Amherstburg.

Due to costs and chronic labour strikes during the expressway's construction, the last section (from Ojibway Parkway to Huron Church Road) was finished in 1983 (as a two-lane freeway which was twinned in 1989), but completely opened as a two-lane freeway in 1986 (so work on the interchange with Huron Church Road could be completed), 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.

On May 7, 1986, the final contracts to complete the expressway began. Overpasses were yet to be constructed at Huron Church Road and Dominion Boulevard, and traffic was

On April 1, 1997, the province fully transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor.

Future

On Friday, November 7, 2008 the Windsor Star reported on plans to begin assessments on the widening and expansion of EC Row's eastern extension, County Road 22. Under the new plans, the highway would be widened to six lanes from Banwell Road to Lakeshore Road, just east on Manning Rd. There will be grade-separations and subsequent on-ramps at Lesperance Rd and a newly-widened Manning Rd. The province has already begun to widen and upgrade County Rd 22 between Lakeshore and Patillo roads. This decision came in light of major commercial, residential and industrial development in Windsor's eastern suburbs and the anticipated growth along the Manning Road corrider and the north shore of Essex county.

The most under-used section of the E.C. Row Expressway will undergo a complete reconstruction as part of the Windsor-Essex Parkway development, expected to begin in 2011. The section of roadway between Huron Church Rd and its western terminus Ojibway Parkway will be merged with a newly built Highway 401 leading to a future bridge to Detroit. The new bridge will be in Windsor's Brighton Beach area; the new highway will go west following E.C. Row Expressway's current route and break south along what is now Huron Church and Talbot Roads. The six-lane Highway 401 will lie in between E.C. Row's east and westbound lanes and will have direct connections to one another. E.C. Row will remain two lanes in either direction and will join it's current roadbed just east of Huron Church Rd.

Exit list

The following table lists the exits along the E.C. Row Expressway.

See also

• List of numbered roads in Essex County

References