Highway 8 is a King's Highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. Its total length is 138.5 km.

History

Highway 8 is one of the oldest provincial highways in Ontario, having first been established in 1918. Up until the early 1970s, the highway was much longer than its current length, extending from Goderich through Kitchener-Waterloo, Cambridge, and Hamilton to Niagara Falls. However, in 1970, the Government of Ontario decided that the stretch of Highway 8 between Winona (just east of Hamilton) and Niagara Falls was no longer of major transportation significance, since by this time most traffic used the Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW), just to the north, to go between the two cities. Accordingly, the province downloaded this section of the highway to the newly-formed Regional Municipality of Niagara, which designated the road as Regional Road 81. In 1998, the provincial government of Mike Harris carried another downloading of the highway to municipal authorities; this time the section between the town of Peters Corners (near Dundas) and Winona was transferred to the Regional Municipality of Hamilton-Wentworth.^[1]

Route

Conestoga Parkway

Highway 8 begins at its western terminus in downtown Goderich, at the junction with Highway 21. It travels eastward as a normal city road, running through Stratford (where it begins overlapping with Highway 7). At New Hamburg, the combined Highway 7/8 becomes a controlled-access freeway and continues into Kitchener (where the 7/8 freeway is known as the Conestoga Parkway).

Freeport Diversion

As the Conestoga Parkway runs through Kitchener, Highways 7 and 8 split off from one another, with Highway 8 turning southeastward via an interchange. The interchange between Highway 8 and the Conestoga Parkway was opened in 1970. Mainline traffic on Highway 8 heading northwest could continue under the Conestoga, where the route defaults to King Street, to enter downtown Kitchener. The Conestoga east/north of this junction serves as a bypass of King Street.

King Street north of the half-clo intersection with the Conestoga Parkway and Highway 8, looking south in Kitchener. King Street traffic, however, has no direct access to the Conestoga.

Highway 8 continues along as four-lane freeway, which is also known as the Freeport Diversion or King Street Bypass, until it ended at an at-grade Y-junction with King Street East. Traffic from the Freeport Diversion was treated as the mainline traffic at this interchange. The Highway 8 designation continues along King Street East to Highway 401.

A direct freeway connection between Highway 401 and the Freeport Diversion was made possible when a new bypass (secretly designated as Highway 7187, though signed as Highway 8) was opened in 1987; it featured a Y-junction with Highway 401 to serve traffic east of that junction. The cloverleaf interchange with the existing Highway 8 had several ramps realigned, and it continues to serve 401 traffic west of that junction.

Recent Improvements

Highway 8 with the interchange with the Conestoga Parkway seen in the distance. The new concrete median barrier and retaining wall on the right side were part of a multiyear project to improve the capacity of the junction. Photographed from the Franklin Street overpass.

In 2002-2004 Highway 8 freeway was widened from four to eight lanes from the interchange to just east of Franklin Street, which necessitated moving one retaining wall and a new overpass with Franklin Street. Since 2006, work has been underway to widen the freeway to eight lanes, including the Fairway Road interchange.

Exits

Freeport Diversion and King Street Bypass

Cambridge and Hamilton

Highway 8 then enters Cambridge, following city streets such as Shantz Hill Road, Fountain Street, King Street, Coronation Boulevard, and Dundas Street. It then continues as a normal road out of Cambridge and into Hamilton, ending at Highway 5 in the town of Peters Corners.

Control Cities

• Goderich, Ontario
• Stratford, Ontario
• Kitchener, Ontario
• Cambridge, Ontario
• Hamilton, Ontario

References

External links

• Highway 8
• Google Maps of Highway 8