Ontario Highway 10

Highway 10
Route information
Maintained by Ministry of Transportation of Ontario
Length	137.3 km (85.3 mi)
History	Established September 1848 Designated February 26, 1920
Major junctions
South end	Northern terminus of  Highway 410 – Caledon
Major intersections	Highway 9 – Orangeville  Highway 89 – Shelburne
North end	Highway 21 / Highway 26 – Owen Sound
Location
Country	Canada
Province	Ontario
Major cities	Owen Sound, Brampton
Towns	Markdale, Shelburne, Orangeville, Caledon
Highway system
Ontario provincial highways Current Former 400-series
← Highway 9 → Highway 11

King's Highway 10, commonly referred to as Highway 10 is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. The highway connects the northern end of Highway 410 just north of Brampton with Owen Sound on the southern shores of Georgian Bay, passing through the towns of Orangeville and Shelburne as well as several smaller villages along the way. It historically followed the Toronto–Sydenham Road, the southern part of which later became Hurontario Street. The section between Orangeville and Primrose was formerly part of Prince of Wales Road, which continues northwards after the highway turns west.

The highway was established in 1920 as one of the original provincial highways. It was extended south by 1937 to Highway 2 in Port Credit. That same year, it became the site of the first highway interchange in Canada at its intersection with The Middle Road. Since the late 1990s, the southern portion has been truncated to its current terminus north of the Brampton–Caledon border.

Route description

Highway 410 ends as Highway 10 begins

The northern terminus of Highway 10 in Owen Sound

Highway 10 through Caledon

Highway 10 begins at the northern end of Highway 410 in Caledon, immediately north of Brampton. It follows Hurontario Street, a route originally carved through the virgin forests of Upper Canada in 1848. Like the pioneer route it has supplanted, the modern highway still divides many of the towns it serves, with the exception of Orangeville. Within the Regional Municipality of Peel it acts as the meridian of the concession road system, with parallel sidelines described as being east or west of Hurontario, and perpendicular concession roads divided into eastern and western segments. passing to the west of Valleywood, a suburban community on the fringe of the Greater Toronto Area. The highway presses northwest and rises gradually over the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. To the west are the Forks of the Credit, a deep glacial ravine and provincial park renowned for its scenery. It passes between several large quarries and through Caledon Village before entering Orangeville at Highway 9, where it diverges from Hurontario Street.

The highway passes to the east of Orangeville on a bypass, switching between the Hurontario St. and Prince of Wales Rd. alignments, avoiding the business district. At the north end of the bypass, the highway curves and proceeds directly north towards the hamlet of Primrose at Highway 89. Highway 10 turns west, becoming concurrent with Highway 89 for a short distance, into the town of Shelburne. The concurrency ends in the centre of Shelburne, as Highway 10 branches north and then resumes its northwesterly course. From Shelburne to Owen Sound, the road follows the northernmost part of the former Toronto–Sydenham Road, a colonization road that predates the division of the land in this area. As such, the road follows a diagonal path relative to the survey grid. It briefly merges with Highway 6 from Chatsworth to its northern terminus in Owen Sound, where Highway 6 continues to Tobermory.

History

Historically, Highway 10 follows the 19th-century stagecoach route known as the Toronto–Sydenham Road (the southern half of which later became absorbed into Hurontario Street). It travelled north from Dundas Street (later Highway 5) in Cooksville through Brampton, Orangeville and Shelburne to Owen Sound. In order to be eligible for federal funding, the Department of Public Highways (DPHO) established a network of provincial highways on February 26, 1920. Portions of the network were then assumed by the DPHO over the following year. The section of Highway 10 within Dufferin County between Orangeville and Dundalk was taken over on July 8, 1920. This was followed several weeks later by the portion within what is now known as the Peel Region between Cooksville and Orangeville on July 22. Finally, the DPHO assumes the portion within Grey County on October 6. It was later extended south from Cooksville when the provincial government assumed the remaining stretch to Lakeshore Road (Highway 2) in Port Credit, on the north shore of Lake Ontario, on March 16, 1921. Until the mid-1920s, highways in Ontario were named rather than numbered. The 166-kilometre (103 mi) Sydenham Highway was designated as Provincial Highway 10 in the summer of 1925.

The highway formerly turned west onto Highway 9 and ran concurrently with it through downtown Orangeville along Broadway, then turned north to follow First Street (the Prince of Wales Road alignment). In 1968, the bypass around Orangeville was completed, bypassing a short section of the Hurontario Street alignment, which is today a dead end providing access to a hotel.

In 1998, due to the combination of increasing urbanization and the presence of the parallel Highway 410 (and a short north-south section of Highway 403) through most of the corridor, the provincial government repealed the Connecting Link agreement for the southernmost 31 km of the highway running through Brampton and Mississauga, which was already effectively under the control of their respective municipal governments. However, the street is still often colloquially referred to by the former highway number in these cities. In 2009, Highway 410 was connected to Highway 10 about 500 metres north of Highway 10's southernmost terminus at the border of Brampton. The 500-metre "orphaned" segment is now discontinuous, and while still technically part of the highway, is only linked to the rest of the highway via a connecting road, and is signed only as "Hurontario Street" rather than with both the street name and highway number.

Also in 2009, a major project to widen two-lane sections of the southern portions of the highway was completed, and the highway is now four lanes wide from Highway 410 north to Camilla. From Shelburne north to Owen Sound, it remains a two-lane highway with several passing lanes in hillier regions.

During winter, the northern stretches of the highway that pass through the snowbelt region of Grey County are subject to poor visibility and road closings during windy conditions or winter storms.

Major intersections

The following table lists the major junctions along Highway 10, as noted by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. 

Division	Location	km	mi	Destinations	Notes
Peel	Mississauga	−28.9	−18.0	Highway 2 (Lakeshore Road)
		−26.9	−16.7	Queen Elizabeth Way – Toronto, Hamilton
		−25.0	−15.5	Highway 5 (Dundas Street)
		−22.9	−14.2	Burnhamthorpe Road
		−21.8	−13.5	Highway 403 – Toronto, Hamilton
		−20.8	−12.9	Eglinton Avenue
		−17.2	−10.7	Highway 401 – Toronto, London
	Brampton	−13.5	−8.4	Highway 407
		−11.6	−7.2	Regional Road 15 (Steeles Avenue)
		−8.5	−5.3	Queen Street
		−5.4	−3.4	Highway 7 (Bovaird Drive) – Vaughan	Highway 7 was downloaded to the Region of Peel in 1998 Now known as Regional Road 107.
		−1.0	−0.62	Regional Road 14 (Mayfield Road)
	Caledon	0.0	0.0	Highway 410 south – Mississauga	Highway 10 begins as Highway 410 transitions from a divided freeway to an undivided four-lane road
		5.2	3.2	Regional Road 9 (King Street) – Terra Cotta, Bolton
		14.5	9.0	Forks of the Credit Road
		18.9	11.7	Regional Road 24 (Charleston Sideroad) – Guelph	Formerly Highway 24 south; south end of former Highway 24 concurrency
Dufferin-Peel Boundary	Caledon-Orangeville Boundary	28.3	17.6	County Road 109 west – Arthur	County road serving as a Highway 9 bypass of Orangeville that links discontinuous sections of that highway
Dufferin	Orangeville	28.9	18.0	Highway 9 east – Newmarket	Highway 10 departs the Hurontario Street alignment
		29.4	18.3	Broadway / Buena Vista Drive	Former route of Highway 9
	Biggles	32.2	20.0	County Road 7 east (Hockley Road) – Loretto County Road 16 west (5th Sideroad)
	Camilla	38.3	23.8	County Road 8 east (Mono Centre Road) – Mono Centre
	Primrose	48.6	30.2	Highway 89 east – Alliston	Beginning of Highway 89 concurrency and former triple concurrency with Highway 24
	Shelburne	52.6	32.7	County Road 124 north – Collingwood	Formerly Highway 24 north; end of former triple concurrency
		53.9	33.5	Highway 89 west – Mount Forest	End of Highway 89 concurrency
Dufferin–Grey boundary	Dundalk	72.7	45.2	County Road 9 west County Road 9 east – Creemore
Grey	Chatsworth	124.5	77.4	Highway 6 south	Beginning of Highway 6 concurrency
	Owen Sound	137.3	85.3	Highway 21 south /  Highway 26 east	End of Highway 6 concurrency; Highway 6 continues west concurrent with Highway 21
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Closed/former       Concurrency terminus

See also

Hurontario Street

References

Sources

Bibliography

• Shragge, John; Bagnato, Sharon (1984). From Footpaths to Freeways. Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Historical Committee. ISBN 0-7743-9388-2.