E. C. Row Expressway
Encyclopedia
The E C Row Expressway is a municipal expressway in the Canadian
city of Windsor, Ontario
. It divides the city in half as it crosses it between the Ojibway Parkway in the west and Banwell Road in the east. The expressway is named after Ohio
born Edgar Charles Row, the president of Chrysler Canada
between 1951 and 1956. Though it was formerly a part of Highway 2
and Highway 18
, the province fully transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor on April 1, 1997.
The western half of the route is mostly surrounded by suburban residential developments, while the eastern half passes by airport
and various automotive manufacturing plants, amongst other industrial, manufacturing and retail areas. The expressway is approximately 15.4 km (9.6 mi) long with a speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour (62.1 mph).
Though it allows for easy travel across the city, the E.C. Row Expressway does not connect to the United States; drivers can access the Ambassador Bridge
via Huron Church Road, or the Detroit–Windsor tunnel via Dougall Parkway, which also provides the most direct access to Highway 401. This situation will change in the near future as the Windsor–Essex Parkway is constructed in the west end of the city. The parkway will extend Highway 401 to a new border crossing and will travel concurrently
with the expressway from Huron Church Road to the Ojibway Parkway.
with a box beam median
and grade-separated interchanges.
several railway barriers."
Properties were purchased along E.C. Row Avenue and the Third Concession beginning in 1958 for what was then intended as a two lane road linking Highway 18 with Highway 39
(which became Highway 2 in 1970). However, with the release of WATS and the subsequent amalgamation in 1966 in which Windsor annexed
portions of the surrounding townships, plans for an expressway along the corridor were first conceived.
The original plans for the expressway dating back to 1969 were for it to travel from current County Road 22, heading west along the southern edge of Belle River and Tecumseh
, meeting up with the current two-lane freeway
alignment (Pike Creek Bypass) just east of Puce, continuing as a freeway (without traffic lights at intersections
, but with interchange
s), and south through Lasalle
down to just north of Amherstburg
.
Due to costs and chronic labour strikes during the expressway's construction
, the last section (from Ojibway Parkway to Huron Church Road) was finished in 1983 (as a two-lane freeway
which was twinned
in 1989), but completely opened as a two-lane freeway in 1986 (so work on the interchange with Huron Church Road could be completed), and is the only part of the freeway (other than from Lauzon Parkway east to Banwell Road) that is up to proper 400-Series Highway standards.
On May 7, 1986, the final contracts to complete the expressway began. Overpasses were yet to be constructed at Huron Church Road and Dominion Boulevard, and traffic was
On April 1, 1997, the province fully transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor.
The most under-used section of the E.C. Row Expressway will undergo a complete reconstruction as part of the Windsor-Essex Parkway development, expected to begin in 2011. The section of roadway between Huron Church Rd and its western terminus Ojibway Parkway will be merged with a newly built Highway 401 leading to a future bridge to Detroit. The new bridge will be in Windsor's Brighton Beach area; the new highway will go west following E.C. Row Expressway's current route and break south along what is now Huron Church and Talbot Roads. The six-lane Highway 401 will lie in between E.C. Row's east and westbound lanes and will have direct connections to one another. E.C. Row will remain two lanes in either direction and will join it's current roadbed just east of Huron Church Rd.
{|class="wikitable"
|-
!scope="col"|Location
!scope="col"|km
!scope="col"|Destinations
!scope="col"|Notes
|-
|colspan="4"|E.C. Row Expressway continues south as Ojibway Parkway towards Amherstburg
|-
|rowspan="11"|Windsor
|0.0
|Ojibway Parkway
|Former terminus of Highway 18
|-
|0.6
|Matchette Road
|Westbound exit and eastbound entrance
|-
|2.7
|Huron Church Road - Ambassador Bridge
to USA
|Formerly Highway 3
|-
|4.2
|Dominion Boulevard
|
|-
|5.3
|Dougall Avenue
|
|-
|6.1
|Howard Avenue
|
|-
|8.3
|Walker Road
|Westbound exit via Central Avenue
|-
|9.3
|Central Avenue
|
|-
|11.9
|Jefferson Boulevard
|Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
|-
|13.0
|Lauzon Parkway
|
|-
|15.4
|Banwell Road
|at-grade intersection
|-
|colspan="4"|E.C. Row Expressway continues east as Pike Creek Bypass (Essex County Road 22) towards Tecumseh
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
city of Windsor, Ontario
Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...
. It divides the city in half as it crosses it between the Ojibway Parkway in the west and Banwell Road in the east. The expressway is named after Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
born Edgar Charles Row, the president of Chrysler Canada
Chrysler Canada
Chrysler Canada Incorporated is Chrysler's Canadian subsidiary. Incorporated in 1925, the Chrysler Corporation of Canada gained complete control of a Maxwell-Chalmers plant in Windsor Ontario that had been used to manufacture some Chrysler models in the previous year...
between 1951 and 1956. Though it was formerly a part of Highway 2
Ontario Highway 2
King's Highway 2, usually referred to simply as Highway 2 is a provincially maintained highway in Ontario. Once the primary east–west route across the southern end of the province, Highway 2 became mostly redundant in the 1960s following the completion of Highway 401, which more or less...
and Highway 18
Ontario Highway 18
King's Highway 18, commonly referred to as Highway 18 was the longest highway in Essex County, Ontario, and travelled through the most communities. Today, it is known as County Road 20...
, the province fully transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor on April 1, 1997.
The western half of the route is mostly surrounded by suburban residential developments, while the eastern half passes by airport
Windsor Airport
Windsor Airport, , is located in the southeast portion of the city of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. The airport serves a mixture of scheduled airline flights and general aviation, and is a popular point of entry into Canada for private and business aircraft...
and various automotive manufacturing plants, amongst other industrial, manufacturing and retail areas. The expressway is approximately 15.4 km (9.6 mi) long with a speed limit of 100 kilometres per hour (62.1 mph).
Though it allows for easy travel across the city, the E.C. Row Expressway does not connect to the United States; drivers can access the Ambassador Bridge
Ambassador Bridge
The Ambassador Bridge is a suspension bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan, in the United States, with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. It is the busiest international border crossing in North America in terms of trade volume: more than 25 percent of all merchandise trade between the United States...
via Huron Church Road, or the Detroit–Windsor tunnel via Dougall Parkway, which also provides the most direct access to Highway 401. This situation will change in the near future as the Windsor–Essex Parkway is constructed in the west end of the city. The parkway will extend Highway 401 to a new border crossing and will travel concurrently
Concurrency (road)
A concurrency, overlap, or coincidence in a road network is an instance of one physical road bearing two or more different highway, motorway, or other route numbers...
with the expressway from Huron Church Road to the Ojibway Parkway.
Route description
The E.C. Row Expressway begins at a signalized intersection with the Ojibway Parkway, curving gently from northeastward to eastward. It progresses east as a four lane controlled-access highwayControlled-access highway
A controlled-access highway is a highway designed exclusively for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow and ingress/egress regulated...
with a box beam median
Central reservation
On divided roads, such as divided highways or freeways/motorways, the central reservation , median, parkway , median strip or central nature strip is the area which separates opposing lanes of traffic...
and grade-separated interchanges.
History
The history of the E.C. Row Expressway dates back to January 1963, when the City of Windsor and the Department of Highways released a report called The Windsor Area Transportation Study (WATS). One of the primary issues identified by the study was "a limited and inadequate street network in the east-west direction generally resulting fromseveral railway barriers."
Properties were purchased along E.C. Row Avenue and the Third Concession beginning in 1958 for what was then intended as a two lane road linking Highway 18 with Highway 39
Ontario Highway 39
Highway 39 is a former Provincial Highway in the northern part of Essex County. The road was roughly 34 km in length and travelled from the current junction of Essex county roads 22 and 42, 2 km south of Belle River, west to Windsor.- Reroutings :...
(which became Highway 2 in 1970). However, with the release of WATS and the subsequent amalgamation in 1966 in which Windsor annexed
Annexation
Annexation is the de jure incorporation of some territory into another geo-political entity . Usually, it is implied that the territory and population being annexed is the smaller, more peripheral, and weaker of the two merging entities, barring physical size...
portions of the surrounding townships, plans for an expressway along the corridor were first conceived.
The original plans for the expressway dating back to 1969 were for it to travel from current County Road 22, heading west along the southern edge of Belle River and Tecumseh
Tecumseh, Ontario
Tecumseh is a town on Lake St. Clair east of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It has a population of just over 24,000.Tecumseh enjoys long summers and mild winters...
, meeting up with the current two-lane freeway
Two-lane freeway
A two-lane expressway is an expressway with only one lane in each direction, and usually no median barrier. It may be built that way because of constraints, or may be intended for expansion once traffic volumes rise. The term super two is often used by roadgeeks for this type of road, but traffic...
alignment (Pike Creek Bypass) just east of Puce, continuing as a freeway (without traffic lights at intersections
Intersection (road)
An intersection is a road junction where two or more roads either meet or cross at grade . An intersection may be 3-way - a T junction or fork, 4-way - a crossroads, or 5-way or more...
, but with interchange
Interchange (road)
In the field of road transport, an interchange is a road junction that typically uses grade separation, and one or more ramps, to permit traffic on at least one highway to pass through the junction without directly crossing any other traffic stream. It differs from a standard intersection, at which...
s), and south through Lasalle
LaSalle, Ontario
LaSalle is a town in Essex County, Ontario, Canada, on the Detroit River. It is a bedroom community of the City of Windsor and part of the Windsor Census Metropolitan Area, and is located south of that city. LaSalle, along with Windsor, is the oldest French settlement area in Southwestern Ontario,...
down to just north of Amherstburg
Amherstburg, Ontario
Amherstburg is a Canadian town near the mouth of the Detroit River in Essex County, Ontario. It is approximately south of the U.S...
.
Due to costs and chronic labour strikes during the expressway's construction
Construction
In the fields of architecture and civil engineering, construction is a process that consists of the building or assembling of infrastructure. Far from being a single activity, large scale construction is a feat of human multitasking...
, the last section (from Ojibway Parkway to Huron Church Road) was finished in 1983 (as a two-lane freeway
Two-lane freeway
A two-lane expressway is an expressway with only one lane in each direction, and usually no median barrier. It may be built that way because of constraints, or may be intended for expansion once traffic volumes rise. The term super two is often used by roadgeeks for this type of road, but traffic...
which was twinned
Twinning (roads)
Twinning a road involves the construction of a similar or identical parallel road. It is usually done when an existing highway requires a significant increase in capacity. Twinning is frequently advantageous because it allows traffic capacity to be doubled and produces a dual carriageway with...
in 1989), but completely opened as a two-lane freeway in 1986 (so work on the interchange with Huron Church Road could be completed), and is the only part of the freeway (other than from Lauzon Parkway east to Banwell Road) that is up to proper 400-Series Highway standards.
On May 7, 1986, the final contracts to complete the expressway began. Overpasses were yet to be constructed at Huron Church Road and Dominion Boulevard, and traffic was
On April 1, 1997, the province fully transferred ownership and responsibility for the route to the City of Windsor.
Future
On Friday, November 7, 2008 the Windsor Star reported on plans to begin assessments on the widening and expansion of EC Row's eastern extension, County Road 22. Under the new plans, the highway would be widened to six lanes from Banwell Road to Lakeshore Road, just east on Manning Rd. There will be grade-separations and subsequent on-ramps at Lesperance Rd and a newly-widened Manning Rd. The province has already begun to widen and upgrade County Rd 22 between Lakeshore and Patillo roads. This decision came in light of major commercial, residential and industrial development in Windsor's eastern suburbs and the anticipated growth along the Manning Road corrider and the north shore of Essex county.The most under-used section of the E.C. Row Expressway will undergo a complete reconstruction as part of the Windsor-Essex Parkway development, expected to begin in 2011. The section of roadway between Huron Church Rd and its western terminus Ojibway Parkway will be merged with a newly built Highway 401 leading to a future bridge to Detroit. The new bridge will be in Windsor's Brighton Beach area; the new highway will go west following E.C. Row Expressway's current route and break south along what is now Huron Church and Talbot Roads. The six-lane Highway 401 will lie in between E.C. Row's east and westbound lanes and will have direct connections to one another. E.C. Row will remain two lanes in either direction and will join it's current roadbed just east of Huron Church Rd.
Exit list
The following table lists the exits along the E.C. Row Expressway.{|class="wikitable"
|-
!scope="col"|Location
!scope="col"|km
!scope="col"|Destinations
!scope="col"|Notes
|-
|colspan="4"|
|-
|rowspan="11"|Windsor
Windsor, Ontario
Windsor is the southernmost city in Canada and is located in Southwestern Ontario at the western end of the heavily populated Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. It is within Essex County, Ontario, although administratively separated from the county government. Separated by the Detroit River, Windsor...
|0.0
|Ojibway Parkway
|Former terminus of Highway 18
Ontario Highway 18
King's Highway 18, commonly referred to as Highway 18 was the longest highway in Essex County, Ontario, and travelled through the most communities. Today, it is known as County Road 20...
|-
|0.6
|Matchette Road
|Westbound exit and eastbound entrance
|-
|2.7
|Huron Church Road - Ambassador Bridge
Ambassador Bridge
The Ambassador Bridge is a suspension bridge that connects Detroit, Michigan, in the United States, with Windsor, Ontario, in Canada. It is the busiest international border crossing in North America in terms of trade volume: more than 25 percent of all merchandise trade between the United States...
to USA
|Formerly Highway 3
Ontario Highway 3
King's Highway 3, commonly referred to as Highway 3 and historically as the Talbot Trail, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario which travels parallel to the shore of Lake Erie. It has three segments, the first of which runs from the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor...
|-
|4.2
|Dominion Boulevard
|
|-
|5.3
|Dougall Avenue
|
|-
|6.1
|Howard Avenue
|
|-
|8.3
|Walker Road
Walker Road
Walker Road was one of the busiest roads in Windsor, Ontario before the road closure. It has an average annual daily traffic level of 32,000 cars per day at the CP Rail crossing.- History :The road is named after Hiram Walker, distillery baron...
|Westbound exit via Central Avenue
|-
|9.3
|Central Avenue
|
|-
|11.9
|Jefferson Boulevard
|Eastbound exit and westbound entrance
|-
|13.0
|Lauzon Parkway
|
|-
|15.4
|Banwell Road
|at-grade intersection
At-grade intersection
An at-grade intersection is a junction at which two or more transport axes cross at the same level .-Traffic management:With areas of high or fast traffic, an at-grade intersection normally requires a traffic control device such as a stop sign, traffic light or railway signal to manage conflicting...
|-
|colspan="4"|
Tecumseh, Ontario
Tecumseh is a town on Lake St. Clair east of Windsor, Ontario, Canada. It has a population of just over 24,000.Tecumseh enjoys long summers and mild winters...