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presents

The Highways of Hamilton /

The Queen Elizabeth Way

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Highway	Duration	Start	Terminus	Length (km)
QEW	1940-	Halton County/Region line, Hamilton Beach	Lincoln County/Niagara Region line east of Winona	18

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Overview

The Queen Elizabeth Way is one of the most prominent controlled-access highways in Ontario. It features a hook-shaped course linking Toronto to Hamilton, Niagara Falls, and Fort Erie along the Niagara Peninsula and Lake Ontario shore. Although considered a 400-series highway, it predates the other highways in its class, and its name and image stand apart.

The QEW's routing in Hamilton is primarily east-west. The route enters the city by way of the Burlington Bay Skyway on Hamilton Beach, giving motorists panoramic views of the harbour. It then intersects Highway 20 and bears east-southeast, running parallel to Highway 8 along the Niagara Escarpment.

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History

The QEW originated as several disconnected multi-lane road projects which were duly stitched together:

• The nineteenth-century Middle Road from Toronto to Burlington, rebuilt as a divided highway between 1931 and 1937;
• The Hamilton-Niagara Falls Highway, a newly-constructed thoroughfare completed between 1937 and 1940;
• The QEW Extension to Fort Erie, opened in 1941 but not fully-paved until the 1950s.

During the June 1939 royal tour of Canada, the St. Catherines-Niagara Falls segment was dedicated in honour of Queen Elizabeth, consort of George VI. The name was applied to the entire road the following year as a patriotic gesture on the onset of WWII, and in 1941 the QEW began to be prominently advertised on provincial maps.

In Hamilton, the yet-unnamed QEW first opened to traffic in 1939. Only the road east of the harbour was new: On the Hamilton Beach sandbar connecting to Burlington, the highway piggybacked upon a concurrency with pre-existing Highway 20 and made use of its movable bridge over the Burlington Canal.

Also note the traffic circle: In the name of expedience, the QEW featured a number of at-grade intersections and chokepoints in its early years. These features were largely eliminated from the highway by the 1970s.

• A: On 30 October 1958, the Burlington Bay Skyway Bridge opened to traffic. This resulted in the QEW being removed from its driveway-strewn concurrency with ON 2 on Beach Boulevard, and gaining its own controlled-access course throughout Hamilton Beach.
• B: By 1970, an interchange had been added at Fruitland Road east of Stoney Creek.
• C: In 1973, tolls and toll booths were removed from the Burlington Bay Skyway.

• D: In 1975, the traffic circle at QEW's intersection with ON 20 was replaced by a grade-separated partial cloverleaf interchange.
• E: By 1976, an interchange had also been added at Fifty Road in Winona.
• F: In 1985, the Burlington Bay Skyway Bridge was "twinned" with the addition of a second, non-identical span. The newer girder bridge presently carries Niagara-bound traffic, while the 1958 arch bridge carries Toronto-bound traffic.

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Links

• Queen Elizabeth Way - Alps' Roads
• Queen Elizabeth Way - Asphalt Planet
• Queen Elizabeth Way (QEW) History - The King's Highways of Ontario

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Gallery

All photos are by the author, 2022-2025:

A QEW marker, somewhere. This ungainly stretched font is a newer variation.

The Burlington Bay Skyway Bridge, with the original 1958 arch span in the foreground.

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