02-23-2015, 12:27 AM
So I've been reading the Conestoga Parkway book and there are some juicy tidbits here. It's interesting to see which roads used to be which. Mill St. used to be the main arterial in that area, for example, but they decided to switch it to Courtland and extend Courtland west of Mill St. to Fairway Rd. Vanier, Manitou, Doon Valley Rd and so on all used to be Mill St.
Homer Watson was supposed to connect to a brand new arterial west of Belmont, potentially connecting to Westmount (I'm not entirely clear, but Westmount originally didn't extend into Kitchener), but they had to axe those plans, and then alternate plans to connect to Belmont due to lack of funds.
I thought this tidbit was interesting. When they connected Westmount to Filsinger Rd (Westmount now in Kitchener), the original understanding was that Waterloo would pay for the CNR bridge over Westmount as Kitchener had paid for the bridge over Belmont. Waterloo reneged on the deal, and so in retaliation, Kitchener refused to widen Weber to four lanes from Victoria north to Waterloo.
The route of the 401 through the region ended up being a compromise between competing proposals from Kitchener and Galt/Preston. Kitchener initially proposed a route through the Freeport area, Galt and Preston then made their own proposal to run it between the two of them. The MTO took the middle ground.
It's definitely interesting getting a sense of what the region used to look like, what it was planned to look like, and what it has turned out to be.
Homer Watson was supposed to connect to a brand new arterial west of Belmont, potentially connecting to Westmount (I'm not entirely clear, but Westmount originally didn't extend into Kitchener), but they had to axe those plans, and then alternate plans to connect to Belmont due to lack of funds.
I thought this tidbit was interesting. When they connected Westmount to Filsinger Rd (Westmount now in Kitchener), the original understanding was that Waterloo would pay for the CNR bridge over Westmount as Kitchener had paid for the bridge over Belmont. Waterloo reneged on the deal, and so in retaliation, Kitchener refused to widen Weber to four lanes from Victoria north to Waterloo.
The route of the 401 through the region ended up being a compromise between competing proposals from Kitchener and Galt/Preston. Kitchener initially proposed a route through the Freeport area, Galt and Preston then made their own proposal to run it between the two of them. The MTO took the middle ground.
It's definitely interesting getting a sense of what the region used to look like, what it was planned to look like, and what it has turned out to be.