History of King's Highway 135:
King's Highway 135 was a minor collector highway which once connected Highway 2 & Highway 4 near Lambeth to Highway 401 south of London. The history of
Highway 135 dates back to the late 1950s, when the Department of Highways of Ontario (DHO) acquired a portion of Middlesex County Road 37 and designated the road as
a new King's Highway. A Preliminary Assumption Plan was prepared by the DHO in June 1957, which showed the proposed assumption of Middlesex County Road 37 between
Highway 2 & Highway 4 and the Highway 401 Interchange. The route was designated as King's Highway 135 by an Order-in-Council, effective June 27, 1957. The new
highway was 6.6 km in length, and provided Windsor and Sarnia-bound motorists with a direct link between Highway 2 & Highway 4 and a newly-constructed section of
Highway 401.
When the London-Woodstock section of Highway 401 was completed in 1957, Highway 401 continued west from London and ended at the Highway 4 Interchange south of
Lambeth. However, this route was really only practical for traffic heading to Windsor via the less popular (and less direct) route offered by Highway 3. By late 1963,
Highway 401 was completed between the Highway 4 Interchange and Windsor. As a result, the access route between Highway 401 and Highway 2 & Highway 4 via
Highway 135 had become somewhat redundant in accommodating through traffic heading to and from Windsor. Fortunately, Highway 135 was still quite useful for motorists
heading west to Sarnia from Highway 401. Motorists could utilize Highway 135, Highway 2 and Highway 81 to access Highway 22, thereby bypassing London entirely.
In the late 1970s, construction was accelerated on Highway 402 between Sarnia and London. In 1982, the new freeway was opened between London and Sarnia. The
completion of this direct freeway link between the two cities significantly reduced the provincial importance of Highway 135. By the early 1990s, the Highway 135
corridor was becoming progressively more urbanized and the highway began to take on a more local transportation function. Accordingly, the entire route of
Highway 135 was transferred from the province to the City of London, effective October 1, 1993. Since 1993, former Highway 135 has been known as "Exeter Road" and
"Wellington Road".
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