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presents

The Highways of Hamilton /

Ontario 55

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Highway	Duration	Start	Terminus	Length (km)
ON 55	1937-1949	ON 6, downtown Hamilton	Rymal Rd. (ON 53) west of Hannon	8
ON 55	1949-1958	John St. S. (ON 6), downtown Hamilton	Rymal Rd. (ON 53) west of Hannon	8
ON 55	1957-1958	Beach Blvd. (ON 20), Hamilton Beach	Rymal Rd. (ON 53) west of Hannon	15
ON 55	1958-1961	QEW, Hamilton Beach	Rymal Rd. (ON 53) west of Hannon	15

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Overview

Highway 55 was one of Hamilton's stranger and shorter-lived numbered roads. It functioned as a north-south escarpment access route, linking downtown Hamilton (and later, Hamilton Beach) to Highway 53 via Upper Gage Avenue, relieving congestion by functioning as an alternate route to Highway 6.

For a brief time in the 1950s, ON 55 actually featured a multi-pronged alignment with two alternate north end points. This arrangement was just as confusing then as it had been for Highway 20A twenty years earlier, so by 1959 the highway was back to a single routing.

Highway 55 ceased to exist as a provincial route in 1961. Its end came not as a consequence of redundancy nor of punitive budget cuts, but of urban growth. By 1960 the City of Hamilton had annexed the entire area surrounding the highway, reducing the DHO's mileage (and therefore maintenance responsibilities) to zero.

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History

As with Highway 53, Highway 55 appeared in 1937 as a repackaging of leftover ingredients. From an intersection with ON 6, the road ascended the Niagara Escarpment through the nineteenth-century Jolley Cut to Concession Street and Upper Gage Avenue...duplicating much of the exact same route that Highway 20, then 20A had taken in the seven years before.

Over the years, the road would see the following adjustments:

• A: About 1949, ON 55 was moved off of Concession Street and onto Sherman and Crockett Avenues, ascending the escarpment by way of Mountain Boulevard and the Sherman Cut instead. (Mountain Boulevard was bisected by the Claremont Access in the 1970s, and portions of the former street exist as St. Joseph's Drive and Sherman Access today.)

• B: By 1957, ON 55 was extended north to Hamilton Beach via Burlington Street, Kenilworth Avenue, and the Kenilworth Access, partially duplicating a routing that had been used by yet another incarnation of ON 20A a few years before. The Mountain Boulevard alignment was also retained, which meant that ON 55 was a confusing Y-shaped road with two dueling forks! (DHO, 1957)
• C: About 1958, ON 55 was removed from Mountain Boulevard and the Sherman Cut, leaving the Kenilworth Access as the highway's only route.
• D: Also about 1958, the north end of ON 55 was realigned to intersect directly with the QEW rather than ON 20 on Hamilton Beach.
• E: In 1961, ON 55 was decommissioned and reclassified as an unnumbered municipal road.

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Gallery

All photos are by the author, 2022-2025:

The slightly-terrifying Sherman Cut, which carried ON 55 from 1949 to 1958. Note the signals for lane reversals!

Kenilworth Avenue, the primary routing for ON 55's 1957 northern extension.

ON 55's 1957 northern extension eventually led to (or began at) the QEW, where this disused bridge over Red Hill Creek hides in plain sight. It hasn't carried traffic since approximately 1985, but is still used as a conduit for utility pipes...which is probably also the reason it hasn't been demolished.

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Following the route

ON 55's route is a challenge to follow. Several of its historical alignments are no longer passable due to infrastructure changes since the 1950s, such as the construction of the Claremont Access. Nevertheless, Highway 55's final 1961-era route can be driven with the following turn-by-turn instructions:

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Links

• Kenilworth Avenue and Access, Hamilton - Alps' Roads
• Sherman Access, Hamilton - Alps' Roads
• Ontario Highway 55 History - The King's Highways of Ontario

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