Ontario Highway 427 Photographs - Page 4 - History of Ontario's Kings Highways

Left - Airport Expressway (Hwy 427 North) Interchange on Hwy 401 in Toronto in 1980, facing northeast from Renforth Drive. The ramp in the foreground carries traffic from eastbound Hwy 401 to the northbound Airport Expressway. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Western side of the Renforth Drive Overpass on Hwy 401 in Toronto. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Facing west along Hwy 401 towards Mississauga from the Renforth Drive Overpass in 1980. Until the extension of the eastbound and westbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes began in the early 1980s, the Express-Collector Lane system seen here collapsed into a conventional six-lane freeway about 2 km west of Renforth Drive. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Ramps to the Airport Expressway and Hwy 427 South from the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes, as seen from the Renforth Drive Overpass in 1980. Note the lack of development south of Hwy 401. The entire vacant parcel of land at left has since been developed into a large business park. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Facing southwest at the Renforth Drive Interchange's south ramp terminal at Hwy 401 & Hwy 427. Note the extensive use of overhead guide signs to mark the freeway entrance ramps. In recent years, this practice has become less common. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Eastern side of the Renforth Drive Overpass on Hwy 401 in Toronto. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Facing southeast at the Renforth Drive Interchange's south ramp terminal at Hwy 401 & Hwy 427. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Facing west along the westbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes from the Renforth Drive Overpass. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - South ramp terminal at the Renforth Drive Interchange, facing north towards Hwy 401 in 1980. Note the internally-illuminated black and white "No Left Turn" signs mounted to the traffic signal poles. The MTO used these internally-illuminated regulatory signs at its signalized intersections up until the 1990s, when they were replaced with the symbolic red-and-white regulatory signs seen today. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Overhead guide sign for Renforth Drive at the end of the eastbound Hwy 401 off-ramp. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Facing west along the westbound Hwy 401 Express Lanes towards Mississauga from the Renforth Drive Overpass in 1980. The on-ramp from westbound Eglinton Avenue can be seen joining into the westbound Hwy 401 Express Lanes at right. Originally, this was a two-lane on-ramp. During the widening of Hwy 401 at Hwy 427 in 2002-2003, the Eglinton Avenue ramp was reduced to a single lane in order to allow for the construction of a fourth through lane on westbound Hwy 401. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Advance overhead guide sign for the Hwy 427 and Renforth Drive Exit on eastbound Hwy 401 in 1980. These two closely-spaced exits were essentially the first phase of the Express-Collector Lane System along Hwy 401 through Mississauga. Note that this exit was once signed as "Interchange #45". In the early 1960s, an exit numbering system was introduced along Hwy 401. Under this numbering system, interchanges were numbered sequentially from Windsor to the Quebec Boundary (west to east). Unfortunately, this sequential exit numbering system began to cause problems as new interchanges were constructed along Hwy 401 in subsequent years. Suffixed exits like Interchange 36A, for example, had to be implemented in order to prevent advancing all of the existing freeway exit numbers ahead by one. This problem was solved in 1982, when a new distance-based interchange numbering system was introduced on Ontario's freeways. Interchanges were numbered based on their approximate mileage point instead of their sequence. This new system allowed additional interchange numbers to be easily added in the future, since there would generally be a distance offset between a proposed and existing interchange. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Beginning of the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes near Toronto International (Pearson) Airport in 1980. In 1982, the first contract was called in a multi-year program to extend the Express-Collector Lane System westerly from this point to the Hwy 403 & Hwy 410 Interchange. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Approaching the Renforth Drive Interchange on the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes. When the Collector Lanes were first built here in 1971, Lane #4 exited to Renforth Drive, while Lanes #1 to #3 continued through to Hwy 427 and the Airport Expressway. When Metro Toronto decided against building the Richview Expressway along Eglinton Avenue, it changed the traffic patterns at the Hwy 401 & Hwy 427 Interchange. As a consequence of that decision, far more traffic began using Hwy 427 South than highway engineers had initially anticipated when the Hwy 401 & Hwy 427 Interchange was designed in the late 1960s. In order to provide more lane capacity in the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes, the lanes at the Renforth Drive exit were reconfigured during a highway widening project which began in 1983. Accordingly, Lane #4 was extended through to Hwy 427, so that four through lanes were provided on the approach to Hwy 427 instead of the original three through lanes seen here. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Overhead guide sign approaching the end of the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes, with pull-though arrows marking the lane arrangements for the ramps to the Airport Expressway (Hwy 427 North) and Hwy 427 South. Until this section of the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes was widened in 1983-1984, the second lane to Hwy 427 South developed from the right immediately upstream of this overhead sign. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Right - Overhead guide sign at the end of the eastbound Hwy 401 Collector Lanes, at the split between the Airport Expressway (Hwy 427 North) and Hwy 427 South. Note the diagonal arrows on the signboards indicating the turn-off. Shortly after these photos were taken, references to the Airport Expressway were removed and replaced with new signs indicating "Hwy 427 North" during a highway reconstruction project in 1981. See an Enlarged Photo here. Photo taken on December 5, 1980.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2015)

Left - Facing south along Southbound Hwy 427 towards the Queen Elizabeth Way from the Hwy 5 (Dundas Street) Interchange in Toronto (July 8, 1981)
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2012)

Right - Hwy 5 (Dundas Street) Underpass on Hwy 427 in Toronto, facing west (July 8, 1981)
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2012)

Left - Facing north along Hwy 427 at the Queen Elizabeth Way and Evans Avenue Interchange in Toronto. See an Enlarged Photo Here. Photo taken on July 30, 1981.
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2012)

Right - Evans Avenue Overpass on Hwy 427 in Toronto, facing east (July 30, 1981)
(Photo courtesy of Ontario Ministry of Transportation - © King's Printer for Ontario, 2012)