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The Ontario Township Survey System

lafard said:
Another interesting fact: Especially as you head north, you start noticing concessions don't quite intersect their crossroads at the same point. This is because they physically used a length of chain to survey the original lots. As you can imagine, this was not the most accurate method. Additionally, in certain locations you see the concession lines meandering back and forth a bit. Compare, for example, to the Prairies where not only was the geography much easier to survey, but technology had improved in the intervening century such that the curvature of the earth became the biggest source of survey error.
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There can be an awful lot of this mid-grid "meandering concession" issue defining the backroads of Halton, Peel, etc--think of Countryside/Wanless in Brampton, esp. before suburbanization smoothed a few of those meanders out...
 
Platform 27 said:
The other north-south streets continue further north, no longer parallel to Yonge, but begin to unevenly shift to go back parallel--Jane does it immediately south of Eglinton; Bathurst, Dufferin & Keele do it immediately north of Eglinton. Mt. Pleasant, however, remains perpendicular to the east-west concessions all the way to its terminus, slowly creeping closer and closer to Yonge as it moves north.
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And there's a reason for Mt Pleasant: it's *not* a concession road, unlike Bathurst, Dufferin, Keele, Bayview, Jane (and technically, Woodbine, though that's camoflauged by the Don Valley gap and the DVP/404 factor)
 
adma said:
There can be an awful lot of this mid-grid "meandering concession" issue defining the backroads of Halton, Peel, etc--think of Countryside/Wanless in Brampton, esp. before suburbanization smoothed a few of those meanders out...
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When the concession road jog mid-way, exactly as they do in Chinguacousy and Caledon Townships (now Brampton and Caledon), that was the result in the type of survey done. Chinguacousy and Caledon (and some other townships) were surveyed in the "double front" system - an early surveyed road was the base line, and the concessions laid out from that in two directions, rather than outward in one direction from a single base line. Hurontario Street was laid out first as a road between Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay (Lake Huron), hence the name. In Brampton and Caledon and north Toronto Township (Eglinton to the north, which was surveyed separately than south of Eglinton), the lines, before renaming, were 1st line West. In Mississauga, there was still a portion of "5th Line West" until the late 1990s in Meadowvale. (West referred to being the nth line west of Hurontario Street, or WHS). EHS and WHS qualifiers still exist in the names of numbered lines in Mono Township (Orangeville area), also based on the double front system off Hurontario.

Other pre-concession roads included Durham Road (Highway 4 in Grey and Bruce Counties), Elora Road, Sydenham Road (Highway 10 north of Shelburne), even parts of the Dundas Street extension to London.

So the error found in a single front system are jogs in the lines at intersections, like in York Township at Eglinton, and again in Vaughan, Markham, Whitchurch, King Townships. In a double front system the errors are between on the concession roads. Old School Road, formerly 22nd Sideroad Chinguacousy, is a perfect example of the jog (not yet smoothed out).
 
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Didn't someone once say it used to be 15th Avenue since it's in between 16th and 14th Avenues? Call it that? Or give it a name...
 
BurlOak said:
we could call it "5th Line" instead of highway 7.
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Fifth Line is just as much as a odd designation for a suburban arterial road as Hwy. 7 is.

Coruscanti Cognoscente said:
Didn't someone once say it used to be 15th Avenue since it's in between 16th and 14th Avenues? Call it that? Or give it a name...
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That wouldn't work for this segment, which follows a different concession line from the old 15th Avenue east of Yonge. Actually, even 16th and 14th Avenues are not appropriate anymore, as the rest of the numbering system is basically gone, as there's no 1-13, 17 or 18 anymore.
 
Transportfan said:
That wouldn't work for this segment, which follows a different concession line from the old 15th Avenue east of Yonge. Actually, even 16th and 14th Avenues are not appropriate anymore, as the rest of the numbering system is basically gone, as there's no 1-13, 17 or 18 anymore.
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Just curious, what is 16th Avenue actually based off of? Counting up from Queen St (which was the original survey baseline, correct?), either counting by 1s or by 2s, it doesn't equal 16. So what was the survey baseline that was used to determine 16th Avenue (which I'm assuming at one point was called 16th Concession)?
 
There are other roads which were part of the concession sequence counting north from Queen other then the familiar 2 Km-spaced arterials. Passmore Ave. in Scarborough was one, but I don't know what the others were.
 
gweed123 said:
Just curious, what is 16th Avenue actually based off of? Counting up from Queen St (which was the original survey baseline, correct?), either counting by 1s or by 2s, it doesn't equal 16. So what was the survey baseline that was used to determine 16th Avenue (which I'm assuming at one point was called 16th Concession)?
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That's an excellent question (and going well off-topic, but I'll entertain). Markham Township had an unique numbering scheme compared to most townships that had separately numbered lines and concessions in sequential order (Waterloo Township had no concession system at all, hence the funny road patterns in Kitchener-Waterloo today). From west to east, Markham went from 1st to 11th lines for north-south roads. Bayview was 1st line, there's still 9th line and 11th line, Pickering-Markham line being 12th. Then it turned upwards with Steeles, being 13th Line, then 14th Line, what is now Highway 7 was 15th Line, the distance between east west and north south roads being equal. 14th, 16th and 19th were later called Avenues.

Had nothing to do with numbers of concessions in Scarborough or York Townships to the south of Steeles.

And in the old Town of Markham, Highway 7 was called Wellington Street.
 
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ShonTron said:
That's an excellent question (and going well off-topic, but I'll entertain).
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Figured here was as good of a place as any to ask. Don't think that starting a new thread about the historical nature of the lot and concessions systems would generate much interest, hahaha.

ShonTron said:
Markham Township had an unique numbering scheme compared to most townships that had separately numbered lines and concessions in sequential order (Waterloo Township had no concession system at all, hence the funny road patterns in Kitchener-Waterloo today). From west to east, Markham went from 1st to 11th lines for north-south roads. Bayview was 1st line, there's still 9th line and 11th line, Pickering-Markham line being 12th. Then it turned upwards with Steeles, being 13th Line, then 14th Line, what is now Highway 7 was 15th Line, the distance between east west and north south roads being equal. 14th, 16th and 19th were later called Avenues.

Had nothing to do with numbers of concessions in Scarborough or York Townships to the south of Steeles.

And in the old Town of Markham, Highway 7 was called Wellington Street.
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Very interesting, thanks! And yes, that system is definitely unique compared to most of the other lot and concession systems I'm familiar with. I've never heard of using the same continuous numbering scheme for both the lines and the concessions. Usually they're numbered independently. Thank you for clarifying.

And yes, Kitchener-Waterloo's road pattern (if you can even call it that) drives me nuts. It looks like someone took a handful of spaghetti and threw it on a map. I know that's the traditional European style, but still.
 
ShonTron said:
That's an excellent question (and going well off-topic, but I'll entertain). Markham Township had an unique numbering scheme compared to most townships that had separately numbered lines and concessions in sequential order (Waterloo Township had no concession system at all, hence the funny road patterns in Kitchener-Waterloo today). From west to east, Markham went from 1st to 11th lines for north-south roads. Bayview was 1st line, there's still 9th line and 11th line, Pickering-Markham line being 12th. Then it turned upwards with Steeles, being 13th Line, then 14th Line, what is now Highway 7 was 15th Line, the distance between east west and north south roads being equal. 14th, 16th and 19th were later called Avenues.

Had nothing to do with numbers of concessions in Scarborough or York Townships to the south of Steeles.

And in the old Town of Markham, Highway 7 was called Wellington Street.
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Thanks for this. I think it applies in King Twp as well.

Concessions are 1 (Yonge) through 12
Presumeably the King-Vaughan townline is 13 and King Road is 14.
Then the east-west sideroads are 15 and up.
 
gweed123 said:
Just a side note: strange that none of the E-W concession roads line up. Almost every single one of them is a jog intersection with the corresponding line. Weird.
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Don't even get me started on that. Sooo many concession roads stop then start somewhere else or have a jog somewhere. What was the perceived benefit back then of naming two roads Lawrence when they don't ever meet (granted they are E and W). Langstaff does this multiple times, Major Mackenzie has a jog. Dufferin as well
 
Woodbridge_Heights said:
Don't even get me started on that. Sooo many concession roads stop then start somewhere else or have a jog somewhere. What was the perceived benefit back then of naming two roads Lawrence when they don't ever meet (granted they are E and W). Langstaff does this multiple times, Major Mackenzie has a jog. Dufferin as well
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My understanding is that that survey crews were comprised of many unskilled workers. The job of one chainman was to collect the pins as the concessions were layed out. Typically (in North York, Vaughan, King) these were 100 chains long (100 x 66' = 1.25 miles ≈ 2km). Unfortunately, they would invariably miscount the number of chains and thus the jogs are typically 66'. By the time the errors were noticed, the concession roads had been cleared and it was too late to fix the problem.
 
BurlOak said:
My understanding is that that survey crews were comprised of many unskilled workers. The job of one chainman was to collect the pins as the concessions were layed out. Typically (in North York, Vaughan, King) these were 100 chains long (100 x 66' = 1.25 miles ≈ 2km). Unfortunately, they would invariably miscount the number of chains and thus the jogs are typically 66'. By the time the errors were noticed, the concession roads had been cleared and it was too late to fix the problem.
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I'm quite happy to de-couple this conversation into a new thread if this continues. If there's more replies, I'll do so (and happily too, I am enjoying this side-conversation).

The jogs are for two reasons:
1. Different surveys at township lines. Vaughan and Markham Townships both started from Yonge going east and west, and from Steeles north, so Langstaff Road, Major Mack, 16th/Carville all line up at Yonge. But the surveys started north from Steeles, so they misalign from York Township and Scarborough Township (which itself did not align properly between York's and Scarborough's roads, so there's the jog near Vic Park for Finch, Sheppard, York Mills/Ellesmere, etc).

Similarly at Steeles between Chinguacousy and Toronto Townships, though they are less pronounced.

2. Within-township errors. This is what you're referring to Burloak, and you're correct.

2a. Single-front townships: at junctions of lines and concession roads. In York Township, this is noticeable with the jogs in Lawrence and Wilson at Keele.

2b. Double-front townships, such as Chinguacousy, Caledon Townships - the jogs are between the lines on the concession roads rather than at the junctions.

These were often heavily-forested lands in the 1830s and 1840s, and work was done with little more than rudimentary maps. measuring chains and compasses. Error was inevitable.
 
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