Ontario Highway 11A

A highway marker for Ontario Highway 11A
Highway 11A
Avenue Road
University Avenue
York Street
Map
A map of Highway 11A
  Highway 11A
  Former route replaced by Highway 401 in 1952
Route information
Auxiliary route of Highway 11
Maintained by City of Toronto
Length12.4 km[1] (7.7 mi)
ExistedJanuary 21, 1931–April 1, 1997
Major junctions
South end Highway 2 (Gardiner Expressway) in Downtown Toronto
Major intersections Highway 5 (Bloor Street) in Yorkville
North end Highway 401
Location
CountryCanada
ProvinceOntario
Major citiesToronto
Highway system
Highway 11 Highway 11B

King's Highway 11A, commonly referred to as Highway 11A, was the highway designation for an alternate route of Highway 11 in the Canadian province of Ontario. The north-south route paralleled Highway 11 (Yonge Street) within Toronto, serving as a secondary access to Downtown Toronto. It began at the York exit of the Gardiner Expressway (Highway 2) and travelled north on York Street to Front Street, where it transitioned onto University Avenue. It continued north on University Avenue to Queen's Park, where Highway 11A followed Queen's Park Crescent, encircling the Ontario Legislative Building, before continuing along Avenue Road. Highway 11A travelled along Avenue Road to Upper Canada College. It followed Lonsdale Road, Oriole Parkway, and Oxton Avenue around the campus and back to Avenue Road, which resumes north of the school. It continued north along Avenue Road to Highway 401, ending just north of the highway at Bombay Avenue.

Highway 11A was established in 1930, when the province built an extension of Avenue Road north from the city limits of the old City of Toronto to complete a parallel alternative to Highway 11. It connected to that route via the Hogg's Hollow Bridge, which had been completed the previous year to provide a level detour of the deep ravine of the West Don River. Although the streets it followed within old Toronto were not maintained by the province, they were signed as part of the highway as a city-maintained Connecting Link for continuity, which was a policy that also applied to other highways that followed city streets. The Hogg's Hollow Bridge was incorporated into Highway 401 upon its completion in 1952, truncating Highway 11A at the interchange with the new freeway. When Metropolitan Toronto was formed in 1953, most provincial routes within its boundaries which were not already connecting links, including Highway 11A, were designated as such. The short and then-recently-urbanized northernmost section of the highway was given Connecting Link status in early 1954 and the whole route continued to be signed until 1997 when it was fully decommissioned.[2]

  1. ^ Ontario Road Map (Map). Cartography by C. P. Robins. Department of Highways. 1954. § Mileage Tables. Archived from the original on October 9, 2021. Retrieved September 27, 2021 – via Archives of Ontario.
  2. ^ Highway Transfers List (Report). Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. April 1, 1997. p. 7.