nfitz
Superstar
That fat lady sung that song years ago. I'm not saying it didn't happen. But I think worrying about trying to reimpose that system now in an urban area, is fanatical.
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Roads: Ontario/GTA Highways Discussion
- Thread starter Haljackey
- Start date
Dan416
Senior Member
Yeah the ship has sailed on that.
I think the best solution at this point would be to do a countrywide renumbering based on the Interstate system.
But getting the provinces on board with that will never happen.
I think the best solution at this point would be to do a countrywide renumbering based on the Interstate system.
But getting the provinces on board with that will never happen.
adma
Superstar
Plus the fact that, well, most provinces scarcely have "Interstate-grade" highways in other than increments. (Then there's the US highway system--though that's probably as much an artifact as the King's Highways to those conditioned within the Interstate age.)
adma
Superstar
Thus the final "maybe it's best to euthanize the King's Highway system altogether" in the post you're responding to.
Look: "reimposing" is one thing; and in practice, it may be as silly as resurrecting buildings that were destroyed 40 or 50 years ago.
But consider that you're speaking to someone who, *in single digiets*, looked forward to the annual new-official-map-of-Ontario ritual, and was always eagerly looking outside the car window on road trips to the point of out-navigating my own parents. Thus, I'm absolutely engaged to that bygone motor-culture--and on later family trips to Florida, looking out at the boring I-75 and fantasizing about the old Dixie Highway beyond (and on a self-propelled 1991 trip to Cincinnati, deliberately following/tracing said Dixie Highway in lieu of the uninspired idiots who're content with I-75). It may be a fanaticism, but it's a much more satisfying linear kinesis. And I highly encourage others to pursue that option--which is why, in the end, I wouldn't be so dismissive about "Highway 10", et al...
Unfortunately, nfitz, you have absolutely no "Dixie Highway curiosity" to you.
I do that too. In fact, just yesterday I walked a portion of the Old Alaska Highway in Kluane Park (yes, I'm up in the Yukon right now). It was bypassed by a more modern version of the Alaska Highway long ago, but it's still pretty cool to see.
I've also started to drive the Thousand Islands Parkway on my way to and from Toronto. Partly because of the bridge construction at 2 points along the 401 in that area, but also because it's interesting to see how close that actually came to becoming THE 401, before the current bypass route from Gananoque to Brockville was chosen.
This all comes back to my Historical Route suggestion. It would be interesting to produce a map of different routes that used to be THE routes, before they were bypassed by something else. Preferably routes that are still drivable, and thus can still be signed with some sort of historical shield.
adma
Superstar
Yeah; at its most sublime, I'd label it Gonzo Guerrilla Heritage Road-Tripping. We could all use a little of that. (And a sleeper alternative to Thousand Islands would be on the *other* side of the 401, Old Hwy 2 via Lansdowne and Mallorytown--go one way one direction, the other way the other direction, and bypass the 401 on both flanks.)
From what I can decipher, for younger generations the contemporary cross-Southern-Ontario highway mythos has been almost entirely usurped by the 401, even for creative-class sorts like Shawn Micallef--not that it isn't deserving of mythos, of course; but still--it's a superhighway. And when it comes to the "off-401" such as Old Hwy 2, it seems like the creative-beholding/experiencing tendency these days inclines more t/w a c18/19-settlement pre-auto-age "purism"--much like nfitz's emphasis on Hurontario's settlement-roadness above all else. Meanwhile, it's the c1920-1980 "King's Highway Era" that turns out to be at a lost-in-the-mix awkward age these days, all the more so with the eclipse of easy-bait tangible auto-age landmarks like vintage motels and gas stations.
Perhaps, too, given what I know of nfitz's politics, a big problem with looking at the mid-c20 highway/motoring-era sympathetically is that too many Web-based highway-historian types out there have been James Alcock-ian nutbars or Usenut Libertrollian types. Dunno what it is about highway heritage that galvanizes those types...
From what I can decipher, for younger generations the contemporary cross-Southern-Ontario highway mythos has been almost entirely usurped by the 401, even for creative-class sorts like Shawn Micallef--not that it isn't deserving of mythos, of course; but still--it's a superhighway. And when it comes to the "off-401" such as Old Hwy 2, it seems like the creative-beholding/experiencing tendency these days inclines more t/w a c18/19-settlement pre-auto-age "purism"--much like nfitz's emphasis on Hurontario's settlement-roadness above all else. Meanwhile, it's the c1920-1980 "King's Highway Era" that turns out to be at a lost-in-the-mix awkward age these days, all the more so with the eclipse of easy-bait tangible auto-age landmarks like vintage motels and gas stations.
Perhaps, too, given what I know of nfitz's politics, a big problem with looking at the mid-c20 highway/motoring-era sympathetically is that too many Web-based highway-historian types out there have been James Alcock-ian nutbars or Usenut Libertrollian types. Dunno what it is about highway heritage that galvanizes those types...
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nfitz
Superstar
??? What on earth does that have to do with anything. Though I doubt you have a clue about my politics, other than I oppose Rob Ford. Though that seems to cover many on the right and left these days ...
I doubt there's an inch of Highway 2 I haven't driven over the years, east of Toronto. I love back roads ... I just don't get a hard-on from what number they are.
Done that trip too. I've gotten stuck at the bridge replacements at La Rue Mills (I think that's what it is), and the Highway 2 bridge just east of Gananoque a couple times for 45 mins to an hour. Sometimes the lanes are reduced, sometimes they're all open, but it's literally hit and miss. So until the bridge replacements are done, it's Highway 2 or the TIP between Brockville and Gananoque.
I once decided to do Highway 2 from Burlington (Appleby Line) all the way to Cobourg. It took me about 3hrs (doing QEW-403-401 by comparison is about 1.5hrs) . It was a nice day, so I didn't mind taking the scenic route.
adma
Superstar
If you want to know "what it has to do", it might be with a certain intersection of highway nostalgia (or at least the on-line version thereof) with a kind of crusty Clint-Eastwood-in-Gran-Torino "when America was great" hard-rightness. Which may help elucidate the cultural remoteness of it all to you. (Similarly re the CAA of yore as the central go-to for everything to do w/motor travel, versus today's CAA as little more than a tow'n'boost operation that's in cahoots with the James Alcock crowd.)
marcus_a_j
Senior Member
My 3rd yr field trip at Ryerson was a St. Lawrence trip where we took Hwy 2 from TO to Montreal to learn about how the older communities have dealt with the travelling public bypassing their towns and cities when the 401 was built. With various stops along the way it took us 4 days to get to MTL but it was a very good trip.
adma
Superstar
And let's also keep in mind that the historiography coming from the "better roads" bunch a la Alcock or Libertrollians in general isn't meant to preserve highway networks so much as to celebrate Our Heroic Forefathers Who Created Our Highway Networks Before The NIMBY Obstructionists Spoiled It All. Indeed, to them, highway-preservationist sentiment would run contrary to the unsentimental "do-it" spirit of said Heroic Forefathers.
All in all, highways a la the King's Highway network get a bum rap these days, probably in part due to the stigma attached to the word "highway", as a c20 despoiler of cities and countryside, et al. It's hard to get misty-eyed over a roadside King's Highway shield when you're getting dusty-eyed and monoxide-eyed instead. Which may be why the nfitz-esque backroaders these days would rather reach further back in history, to the truly important formative purity of c18 and c19 settlement, in their backroad quests, and treat the King's Highway era as an unimportant blip rather than as a valid (all the more so for its proximity to our own time; hey, the c20 was an electrifying century) part of it all. I mean, I can identify with the reaching-back-further part, too; but as augmentation, rather than negation.
Metaphorically speaking, the stigma is this: "highways" are to historic road infrastructure as Brutalism is to architectural heritage. (And a lot of you may know my feelings t/w those who welcome with open arms the demolition of buildings like this.)
Transportfan
Senior Member
Sometimes on discussion boards, it's impossible to get a point across in one post...
I was refering to what people labelled the highways, which in the city would have been the street names.
adma
Superstar
Uh, did you consider that maybe people (at least the road travelling/map using sort) viewed them in conjunction? Sure, for primary purposes such as addressing, etc. Yonge is, was, and always shall be Yonge--no argument about that. Only a true idiot or absolute out-of-town motorist would have viewed it primarily as "Hwy 11", a la Hwy 27 in Etobicoke, Hwy 7 in York County/Region, etc. However, as long as common maps, highway maps and street maps, depicted Yonge as the central vertical red line with the "11" shield, it served a duel identity. Yonge Street it was, but it was a Yonge Street that also served as Hwy 11...and, of course, that "also-servedness" wound up being curdled into the cloying Queen's-Quay-to-Rainy-River longest-street-in-the-world mythos in the 70s. Yet however contrived that "mythos" was, there was an inherent grandeur to it, that of Yonge/11 as a gateway to the Great Beyond much as Michigan Ave/Route 66 was in Chicago (and re some of the "specially marked heritage highway" discussion in this thread, it's something that could even have been threaded on a la Historic Route 66, making lemonade out of that wretched "Longest Street In The World" lemon). It may have been subtle, but the "dual identity" of Yonge was strong...even if it's lost to younger generations who never really knew anything but the 400 as a primary corridor up north, and for whom Yonge/11 would have been a sprawly hellhole that no "sane" parent would have opted for en route to Muskoka and beyond.
Though not *entirely* lost, as the continued presence of shields like this along Yonge prove...
...yeah, they're technically, anachronisms. But to the urban-hipster/psychogeographic bunch, they might as well be as cherishable as those stone mileposts along the National Road in Ohio. As long as they remain extant, they're the best kinds of forever-reminders.
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Paolo
Guest
Thats the highway 11 marker on the hydro pole at yonge south of steeles
nfitz
Superstar
A call to 3-1-1 is in order!