Essex County Road 46

County Road 46 is a primary artery in northern Essex County, Ontario, linking Windsor, Ontario with Tilbury, Ontario, serving as a viable alternative to County Roads 42, 8, and Highway 401. In Windsor, the road is named "Provincial Road", and travels as a two-lane road for its entire length from its split with "Division Road". It continues eastward as Chatham-Kent Municipal Road 8.

The road is a typical county road today, having low traffic volumes outside of Windsor, but at one time, it was a vital provincial highway.

History

The road first began as the historic "Middle Road", which led from London and Toronto to Windsor, to allow colonists to enter the area and turn Essex County from untamed forest into farmland.

In the 1920s, the Province of Ontario's Department of Public Highways of Ontario (DPHO, the predecessor of today's Ministry of Transportation) decided to start numbering its roads. This road would gain the designation of Highway 18. in 1929, when the Ambassador Bridge opened, this road was re-named Highway 2A, and was intended to bring travellers into downtown Windsor (and eventually to the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel), while Highway 2 (which had absorbed the original routing of Highway 18 along modern day County Road 42), would lead people into downtown Windsor. Highway 3 would travel down the newly-built alignment leading to the bridge. This road was re-named Highway 98 in 1938.

Before 1929, Highway 18 connected Windsor to Tilbury along...
Read More