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The Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) is a 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario linking Toronto with the Niagara Peninsula and Buffalo, New York. The freeway begins at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie and travels around the western shore of Lake Ontario, ending at Highway 427. The physical highway, however, continues as the Gardiner Expressway into downtown Toronto. The QEW is one of Ontario's busiest highways, with an average of close to 200,000 vehicles per day on some sections. Major highway junctions are located at Highway 420 in Niagara Falls, Highway 405 in Niagara-On-The-Lake, Ontario and Highway 406 in St. Catharines, the Red Hill Valley Parkway in Hamilton, Highway 403 and Highway 407 in Burlington, Highway 403 at the Oakville–Mississauga boundary and Highway 427 in Etobicoke. Within the Regional Municipality of Halton, the QEW is signed concurrently with Highway 403. The history of the QEW dates back to 1931, when work began to widen the Middle Road in a similar fashion to the nearby Dundas Highway and Lakeshore Road as a relief project during the Great Depression. Following the 1934 provincial election, Ontario Minister of Highways Thomas McQuesten and his deputy minister Robert Melville Smith changed the design to be similar to the autobahns of Germany, dividing the opposite directions of travel and using grade-separated interchanges at major crossroads. When it was initially opened to traffic in 1937, it was the first intercity divided highway in North America and featured the longest stretch of consistent illumination in the world. While not a true freeway at the time, it was gradually upgraded, widened and modernized beginning in the 1950s, more or less taking on its current form by 1975. Since then, various projects have continued to widen the route. In 1997, the provincial government turned over the responsibility for the section of the QEW between Highway 427 and the Humber River to the City of Toronto. This section was subsequently redesignated as part of the Gardiner Expressway. == Name and signage == The Queen Elizabeth Way was named for the wife of King George VI who would later become known as Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother. It is sometimes referred to as the Queen E. In 1939, the royal couple toured Canada and the United States in part to bolster support for the United Kingdom in anticipation of war with Nazi Germany, and also to mark George VI's coronation. The highway received its name to commemorate the visit; it was unveiled on June 7 as the King and Queen drove across the Henley Creek bridge in St. Catharines. Originally, the entire length of the highway featured stylized light standards with the letters "''ER''", the Royal Cypher for ''Elizabeth Regina'', the Latin equivalent to "Queen Elizabeth". While mostly removed, they remain in place on three bridges along the route of the highway: in Mississauga over the Credit River, in Oakville over Bronte Creek, and in St. Catharines over Twelve Mile Creek. A short section of Highway 420 and its extension Falls Avenue in Niagara Falls had replicas of these light standards installed in 2002. The markers identifying the QEW have always used blue lettering on a yellow background instead of the black-on-white scheme used on other provincial highway markers. They originally showed the highway's full name only in small letters, with the large script letters "ER" placed where the highway number is on other signs. In 1955, these were changed to the current design, with the lettering "QEW". Although the QEW has no posted highway number, it is considered to be part of the Province of Ontario's 400-series highway network. The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario designates the QEW as Highway 451 for internal, administrative purposes. A monument was originally located in the highway median at the Toronto terminus of the highway, dedicated to the 1939 visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and known as the ''Lucky Lion''. Carved on-site under the direction of Frances Loring for C$12,000 (in 1940, $ adjusted for inflation), it consisted of a column with a crown at the top and a lion at the base. The monument was removed in 1972 in order to accommodate widening of the original QEW, and relocated in August 1975 to the nearby Sir Casimir Gzowski Park along Lake Ontario, on the east side of the Humber River. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Queen Elizabeth Way」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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