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presents

The Highways of Hamilton /

Lincoln M. Alexander and Red Hill Valley Parkways

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Highway	Duration	Start	Terminus	Length (km)
Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway	1997-1999	ON 403 east of Ancaster	Dartnall Rd., Hannon	11
Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway	1999-	ON 403 east of Ancaster	Winterberry Dr. & Mud St., Mt. Albion	13
Red Hill Valley Parkway	2007-	Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway, Mt. Albion	QEW north of Stoney Creek	8

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Overview

The Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway ("The Linc") is a linear east-west road skirting Hamilton south of the escarpment, serving some of the city's newer areas of commercial development and suburban sprawl.

"The Linc" is probably the single most boring highway in Hamilton, with no scenery along its straight-arrow course other than privacy walls and the occasional rear end of a big-box store. Residual traffic beyond its west terminus is fed directly onto Mohawk Road. The name commemorates Hamilton resident Lincoln MacCauley Alexander, the first Black Member of Parliament and Lieutenant Governor of Ontario. Though Alexander lived to see the dedication, he probably rolled his eyes as well: Lincoln "never learned to drive and was afraid of cars."

At Albion Falls, the highway bears north and continues as the Red Hill Valley Parkway to the Lake Ontario shore. The two parkways have a combined distance of 20 kilometres, and complete a loop of controlled-access roads around Hamilton with the QEW and 403.

Both the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and the Red Hill Valley Parkway feature four lanes and a division for their entire length, similar to the standards of Ontario 400-series highways. As far as the MTO is concerned, however, they're merely city streets.

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History

The tale of the two parkways begins in the 1950s, an era when cities and Departments of Transportation enthusiastically laid down plans to send freeway traffic coursing through downtowns with little thought about the resulting displacement, congestion, or consequences. Hamilton was no exception, and in 1960 the DHO unhatched a plan for three new highways (presumably in addition to the 403, which was already in progress at the time):

• Crosstown Expressway - "in five or ten years"
• Hamilton Ring Road - "in ten or fifteen years"
• North-South Expressway - "in fifteen or twenty years"

These proposals never got off the drawing board, but hinted at what would come. By 1967, the City of Hamilton had approved a transportation study and added a "Highway 53 Freeway" and "Red Hill Creek Freeway" to its Official Plan. The former was subsequently finalized with an alignment adjacent to Limeridge Road.

By then, however, sentiment had cooled. Awareness about the negatory effects of private automobiles in cities had grown, culminating with the cancellation of Toronto's Spadina Expressway in 1971. In Hamilton, the construction of new highways essentially ceased in 1969 after the partial completion of the 403. It would not resume for another twenty years.

In the 1980s, the city undertook an environmental assessment of the proposed "53" and Red Hill Valley routes. Construction commenced in 1990 despite community opposition, and by 1997 the east-west highway had been completed to Dartnall Road. Following a dedication ceremony for Lincoln M. Alexander, the new road opened to traffic on 15 October 1997.

The Red Hill Valley Parkway was particularly dogged by controversy and bad blood, as it passed through an ecologically sensitive area. A grassroots organization called Save the Valley attempted to stop the proposal through hearings and judicial review, winning a victory in 1990 when Bob Rae's NDP government withdrew funding for construction. Mike Harris' right-wing PC government intervened to restore funding (while cutting funding from over 4,000 kilometres of older roads), but years would go by before road-building would resume. Ugly lawsuits were waged between the city and the federal government over environmental review, and in 2003 protesters held up construction by camping out on the premises.

In 2003, a proponent of the highway won the Hamilton mayoral election. Construction resumed the following year, and the Red Hill Valley Parkway opened to traffic on 17 November 2007.

• A: In 1999, the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway was lengthened to its present terminus at Winterberry Drive. The resulting interchange was also designed to mesh with the Red Hill Valley Parkway, which would eventually see completion in 2007.

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Gallery

All photos are by the author, 2022-2025:

Exit to "The Linc" from Highway 403.

The Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway was originally signed with trailblazers bearing the pre-2001 Hamilton-Wentworth "HW" logo. Most of these signs were replaced with the current insignia around 2020, but here's one that wasn't.

...And here's the current insignia. I still think a sign with a highway number would have been better.

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Links

• Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway - Alps' Roads
• Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway - Asphalt Planet
• Red Hill Valley Parkway - Alps' Roads
• Red Hill Valley Parkway - Asphalt Planet

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