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The Middle Road was the name for a historic highway in the Canadian province of Ontario, which served to link the cities of Toronto and Hamilton. The name was used between 1931 and 1939, after which the road became the northern section of the Queen Elizabeth Way. The Middle Road was initially constructed as a depression relief project, employing 74 men to grade and widen the country lane into a four lane roadway. In 1934, the concept was reworked by Thomas McQuesten and Robert Mellville Smith into a divided, limited access freeway, the first such intercity stretch in North America when it was opened in 1939.〔While the Long Island Parkway and several similar roadways opened in the late twenties and early thirties, these parkways were designed to move traffic in and out of a city's downtown. The Middle Road was designed to provide travel between cities, and opened a year before the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the first U.S. highway to do this.〕 The Middle Road is an important development in the history of Ontario, as it provided the blueprint for Highway 401, believed by some to be the largest contributor to the current economy and standard-of-living in Ontario.〔Shragge p. 95 "as geography professor, E.G. Pleva, of the University of Western Ontario stated: ‘Highway 401 is the most important single development changing the social and economic pattern of Ontario. It is still transforming the province's economy and the social, work and spending habits of its people.’"〕 == Route description == The Middle Road or Commissioners' Road,〔http://www.pollard.ca/genealogy/0001text.txt〕 named so because of its location between what were then the highways between Toronto and Hamilton, Dundas Street and Lake Shore Road, followed the same path taken by today's Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), with little exception, beginning at the Humber River and travelling to Bronte Line (where today, the QEW veers south). Since the highway followed a concession road,〔Stamp p. 13〕 it was straight for almost its entire length, veering only at Browns Line (Highway 27), the Credit River, and at the Oakville border. At the time of construction, this route was surrounded by farmland, as most of the towns in the area at the time lay along Dundas or Lake Shore, to the north and south respectively. However, the highway spurred rapid development of the surrounding land; it did not take long for farmland to become subdivisions. Middle Road was also a concession created between 1st Concession South and 2nd Concession South during the early 1800s. Most of the route was paved with concrete.〔Stamp p. 50〕 The two roadways were separated by a median varying in width,〔Shragge indicates three to ten feet on page 79, consistent with the minimum of one metre given by Stamp on page 20, but far less than the maximum of nine metres.〕 often filled with trees. Most of the rows of trees along the old country lane were incorporated into the median, and new ones were planted in the gaps, as equal focus was given to functionality as aesthetics.〔Stamp p. 24〕 Over most of the bridges, the two roadways converged, undivided. These were, however, a great improvement from the bridges along the old lane, as seen in the picture at left. At Highway 10 (Hurontario Street) was Canada's first cloverleaf interchange,〔Shragge p.81〕 opened in 1937.〔Stamp p. 25〕〔Stamp also writes on page 20 that construction on the cloverleaf ''began'' in 1937. Shragge also indicates it opened in 1937 on page 81.〕 One of the elements of the Middle Road, to which engineers paid particular attention in future highway design, was controlled access. While the section between the Humber River and Highway 27 was built without allowance for private driveways, and was thus controlled-access, many at-grade intersections lie along the Middle Road west of Highway 27, and many adjoining landowners built driveways to the highway for access, an issue that led to the creation of legislation to allow the designation of a road as 'controlled-access'.〔Stamp p.〕 Today, a small remnant of the pre-1930s Middle Road can be found spanning the Etobicoke Creek off of Sherway Drive at the Mississauga and Etobicoke border. The bridge, constructed in 1909, was part of Middle Road until 1932 and served as a farm lane until the section of the Queen Elizabeth Way into Toronto opened in 1940. The short section was later renamed Sherway Drive. 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「The Middle Road」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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