Ontario Roads - Highway 400/69

Highway 400 and Trans-Canada Highway 69/400

All photos are SB.


Pardon the snow, but I'm not driving the entire road again just for better weather. I don't see why Highway 69 can't follow Oastler Park Dr. at Exit 224, since it's a through road, except Ontario is just trying to reduce the road mileage it has to maintain to an absolute minimum.


Highway 69 exits here onto Rankin Lake Rd. Highway 141 ends at the 400 to the south, so this is a shortcut, hence the two "TO" shields. I've never seen a regular shield with a TO inside, which is what I have in the second photo, and I didn't even notice it until writing this caption.


Hidden Glen Road comes to a plain T intersection at the 400. It's the only access to Wood Landing, so it can't just be cut off completely, but in that case it should have been modified for more freeway-appropriate ramps.


Bayfield St. (Highway 26 to the west) and Anne St. in Barrie.


SB at Exit 43, King Rd./York RR 11. Ontario uses orange road stripes through construction zones, which definitely accents the idea that road work is taking place. The construction here is to add HOV lanes to the 400 and reconfigure the interchange from a four-ramp to a six-ramp configuration, moving the Park and Ride lot to a different quadrant in the process. The old bridge is north of the new bridge, so that's the only one you can really see in these photos. RR 11 was already disconnected from it as seen in the last photo, so it must be gone now.


The first one is on the highway, the second one is on the ramp, and there's nothing wrong with either one - by Ontario standards. But I have problems with Ontario's standards. At least here the "EXIT" sign tells you that the right arrows are the exiting ones, but still, with "Highway 7" to the left, it's as if going straight puts you on Highway 7 and exiting right puts you on Exit 29. Where did the 400 go? Interpreting the sign literally is the correct way to go, in that this is the exit for RR 7 and its destination in either direction is Highway 7. It would still be nice to tell where Highway 7 then leads. I also don't like the impression these arrows give that there's only one lane continuing through.


In the meantime, these signs are on the mainline, and that makes the second one wrong because blue signs are only for C-D roads. (The 407 always gets blue signs, but that doesn't make it right, to me. I agree with Scott Steeves that purple would be the best choice if Ontario really feels the need for a separate color - or just do what the USA does and put a "TOLL" banner on it and trust people to actually read the sign. Because it's a special toll road, Highway 407 doesn't get a typical crown shape and is stuck in a pill. There's something wrong with the lane lines in the diagrammatic.

Onto Highway 69 alone

Back to Ontario Roads
Back to Roads