Ontario Highway 10

Highway 410 ends as Highway 10 begins

The northern terminus of Highway 10 in Owen Sound

Highway 10 through Caledon

Highway 10 begins at the northern end of Highway 410 in Caledon, immediately north of Brampton. It follows Hurontario Street, a route originally carved through the virgin forests of Upper Canada in 1848. Like the pioneer route it has supplanted, the modern highway still divides many of the towns it serves, with the exception of Orangeville. Within the Regional Municipality of Peel it acts as the meridian of the concession road system, with parallel sidelines described as being east or west of Hurontario, and perpendicular concession roads divided into eastern and western segments. passing to the west of Valleywood, a suburban community on the fringe of the Greater Toronto Area. The highway presses northwest and rises gradually over the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO World Biosphere Reserve. To the west are the Forks of the Credit, a deep glacial ravine and provincial park renowned for its scenery. It passes between several large quarries and through Caledon Village before entering Orangeville at Highway 9, where it diverges from Hurontario Street.

The highway passes to the east of Orangeville on a bypass, switching between the Hurontario St. and Prince of Wales Rd. alignments, avoiding the business district. At the north end of the bypass, the highway curves and proceeds directly north towards the village of Primrose at Highway 89. Highway 10 turns west, becoming concurrent with Highway 89 for a short distance, into the town of Shelburne. The concurrency ends in the centre of Shelburne, as Highway 10 branches north and then resumes its northwesterly course. From Shelburne to Owen Sound, the road follows the northernmost part of the former Toronto–Sydenham Road, a colonization road that predates the division of the land in this area. As such, the road follows a diagonal path relative to the survey grid. It briefly merges with Highway 6 from Chatsworth to its northern terminus in Owen Sound, where Highway 6 continues to Tobermory.

Historically, Highway 10 follows the 19th-century stagecoach route known as the Toronto–Sydenham Road (the southern half of which later became absorbed into Hurontario Street), which travelled north from Dundas Street (later Highway 5) in Cooksville through Brampton, Orangeville and Shelburne to Owen Sound. It was first designated as a provincial highway on February 26, 1920 when the newly formed Department of Highways assumed the road. It was later extended south when the provincial government assumed the remaining stretch to Lakeshore Road (Highway 2) in Port Credit, on the north shore of Lake Ontario.[5] At that point, the total length of the highway was 166 km.

The highway formerly turned west onto Highway 9 and ran concurrently with it through downtown Orangeville along Broadway, then turned north to follow First Street (the Prince of Wales Road alignment). In 1968, the bypass around Orangeville was completed, bypassing a short section of the Hurontario Street alignment, which is today a dead end providing access to a hotel.[6]

Colloquial reference to Highway 10 in the name of a restaurant in Mississauga

In 1998, due to the combination of increasing urbanization and the presence of the parallel Highway 410 (and a short north-south section of Highway 403) through most of the corridor, the provincial government repealed the connecting link agreement for the southernmost 31 km of the highway running through Brampton and Mississauga, which was already effectively under the control of their respective municipal governments. However, the street is still often colloquially referred to by the former highway number in these cities. In 2009, Highway 410 was connected to Highway 10 about 500 metres north of Highway 10's southernmost terminus at the border of Brampton. The 500-metre "orphaned" segment is now discontinuous, and while still technically part of the highway, is only linked to the rest of the highway via a connecting road, and is signed only as "Hurontario Street" rather than with both the street name and highway number.

Also in 2009, a major project to widen two-lane sections of the southern portions of the highway was completed, and the highway is now four lanes wide from Highway 410 north to Camilla. From Shelburne north to Owen Sound, it remains a two-lane highway with several passing lanes in hillier regions.

During winter, the northern stretches of the highway that pass through the snowbelt region of Grey County are subject to poor visibility and road closings during windy conditions or winter storms.

The following table lists the major junctions along Highway 10, as noted by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario.[1] 

Division	Location	km[1]	mi	Destinations	Notes
Peel	Mississauga	−28.9	−18.0	Highway 2 (Lakeshore Road)	Southern terminus of Highway 10 prior to 1998, under a connecting link agreement through Mississauga and Brampton Highway 2's connecting link agreement was also repealed in 1998
		−26.9	−16.7	Queen Elizabeth Way – Toronto, Hamilton
		−25.0	−15.5	Highway 5 (Dundas Street)	Highway 5's connecting link agreement was repealed in 1998
		−22.9	−14.2	Burnhamthorpe Road
		−21.8	−13.5	Highway 403 – Toronto, Hamilton
		−20.8	−12.9	Eglinton Avenue
		−17.2	−10.7	Highway 401 – Toronto, London
	Brampton	−13.5	−8.4	Highway 407
		−11.6	−7.2	Regional Road 15 (Steeles Avenue)
		−8.5	−5.3	Queen Street
		−5.4	−3.4	Highway 7 (Bovaird Drive) – Vaughan	Highway 7 was downloaded to the Region of Peel in 1998. Currently Regional Road 107.
		−1.0	−0.62	Regional Road 14 (Mayfield Road)	End of former Mississauga-Brampton connecting link agreement
	Caledon	0.0	0.0	Highway 410 south – Mississauga	Highway 10 now officially begins just south of where Highway 410 ends
		5.2	3.2	Regional Road 9 (King Street) – Terra Cotta, Bolton
		14.5	9.0	Forks of the Credit Road
		18.9	11.7	Regional Road 24 (Charleston Sideroad) – Guelph	Formerly Highway 24; south end of former Highway 24 concurrency.
Dufferin-Peel Boundary	Caledon-Orangeville Boundary	28.3	17.6	County Road 109 west – Arthur	County road serving as a Highway 9 bypass of Orangeville that links discontinuous sections of that highway
Dufferin	Orangeville	28.9	18.0	Highway 9 east – Newmarket	Highway 10 departs the Hurontario Street alignment
		29.4	18.3	Broadway / Buena Vista Drive	Former route of Highway 9
	Biggles	32.2	20.0	County Road 7 east (Hockley Road) – Loretto County Road 16 west (5th Sideroad)
	Camilla	38.3	23.8	County Road 8 east (Mono Centre Road) – Mono Centre
	Primrose	48.6	30.2	Highway 89 east – Alliston	Beginning of Highway 89 concurrency (and former triple concurrency with Highway 24)
	Shelburne	52.6	32.7	County Road 124 north – Collingwood	Formerly Highway 24; end of former triple concurrency
		53.9	33.5	Highway 89 west – Mount Forest	End of Highway 89 concurrency
Dufferin–Grey boundary	Dundalk	72.7	45.2	County Road 9 west County Road 9 east – Creemore
Grey	Chatsworth	124.5	77.4	Highway 6 south	Beginning of Highway 6 concurrency
	Owen Sound	137.3	85.3	Highway 21 south /  Highway 26 east	End of Highway 6 concurrency; Highway 6 continues west concurrent with Highway 21
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi       Closed/former       Concurrency terminus

Hurontario Street

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Sources

Bibliography

• Shragge, John; Bagnato, Sharon (1984). From Footpaths to Freeways. Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Historical Committee. ISBN 0-7743-9388-2.