Ontario Highway 100 (#2) History - The King's Highways of Ontario

The second King's Highway 100 was a new limited-access highway constructed along the eastern side of London during the 1970s. This project was part of a proposal by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) to build a series of improved highway connections within the City of London. The route of Highway 100 was laid out so that it provided a direct connection between London's Airport and Highway 401. Although the route of the new airport highway was originally envisioned as a fully controlled-access freeway, the route plan was scaled back to an arterial highway following the release of a 1975 route planning study, which suggested that a freeway link to the airport was not required. Nonetheless, the province set aside sufficient right-of-way along the new highway corridor so that the two-lane highway could be expanded to four or more lanes in the future. The highway was a signed municipal connecting link from the Thames River Bridge northerly to its proper terminus at Highway 2, and in actual fact was approximately 4 km longer than stated above (thus, about 8 km total). The route of Highway 100 is shown as complete on the 1978-1979 Official Ontario Road Map (updated to January 1, 1978), as well as listed in the 1977 Provincial Highways Distance Table. However, a historical source identified a number of years ago suggests that the route of Highway 100 was not officially completed and opened to traffic until June 22, 1978.

In 1993, the province downloaded Highway 100 to the City of London. The transfer of the highway took place on June 24, 1993. Highway 100 was known as Airport Road for several years, but it was later renamed as Veterans Memorial Parkway. In 2004, the City of London began widening former Highway 100 to four lanes. While this project provided much-needed capacity improvements on Airport Road (Veterans Memorial Parkway), the reconstruction did not involve the upgrade of this road into a proper freeway as originally planned by the MTO in the 1970s. A different, unrelated Highway 100 existed near St. Mary's from 1941 until 1962.