Steeles Avenue

Steeles Avenue is an east-west street that forms the northern city limit of Toronto and the southern limit of York Region, Ontario, Canada. It stretches 77.3 km (48.0 mi) across the western and central Greater Toronto Area from Appleby Line in Milton in the west to the Toronto-Pickering city limits in the east, where it continues east into Durham Region as Taunton Road, which itself extends 58 km (36 mi) across the length of Durham Region to its boundary with Northumberland County.

Steeles Avenue
Peel Regional Road 15 Halton Regional Road 8
Steeles in Toronto and York Region
Route information
Maintained by City of Toronto Region of Peel Region of Halton
Length	77.3 km[1] (48.0 mi)
Major junctions
West end	Appleby Line
	(Former) Highway 25 Trafalgar Road Winston Churchill Boulevard Mississauga Road Mavis Road / Chinguacousy Road Hurontario Street / Main Street  Highway 410 Dixie Road Airport Road Highway 50 / Albion Road (Former) Highway 27 Islington Avenue Weston Road  Highway 400 Jane Street Keele Street Dufferin Street Bathurst Street Yonge Street Bayview Avenue Don Mills Road  Highway 404 / Woodbine Avenue Warden Avenue Kennedy Road McCowan Road Markham Road Ninth Line
East end	Scarborough-Pickering Townline / York-Durham Line (Continues as Taunton Road)
Location
Major cities	Toronto Vaughan Markham Brampton
Towns	Milton Halton Hills
Highway system
Roads in Ontario Nearby arterial roads ← Finch Avenue; Derry Road Steeles Avenue John Street/14th Avenue; Highway 7; Queen Street →

York Region refers to Steeles Avenue as Regional Road 95, but the designation is strictly internal and there are no signs posted. Through Peel and Halton Regions, the street is signed as Peel Road 15 and Halton Road 8, respectively.

The combination of Steeles and Taunton Road is the only arterial road to cross almost the entire Greater Toronto Area without breaks or turnoffs.

History

The Green Bush Inn at Yonge and Steeles; circa 1920

The street is named after Thomas Steele (1806-1877),[2] the first proprietor of the Green Bush Inn on the northwest corner of the street's intersection with Yonge Street in Thornhill.[3] Thomas Steele also previously managed an Inn in Bond Head, Ontario. The street's name originally contained an apostrophe (before the 'S'), a suggestive of Steele's possession of the inn and land around the intersection, but it was dropped by the mid-20th century.

Steels in Scarborough was once referred to as Scarborough Town Line from 1850 to 1953. Prior to 1967, Steeles Avenue was named Upper Base Line (Lower Base Line being Eglinton Avenue, which is still named as such) in Halton County.[4]

A 1.5 kilometres (0.93 mi) stretch of Steeles Avenue will be widened from east of Tapscott Road to just east of Ninth Line from 2020 to 2024.[5]

Route description

Steeles Avenue West, viewed from the railway bridge which crosses above the road between Keele and Dufferin Streets.

The eastern portion of the road begins at Scarborough-Pickering Town Line/York-Durham Line, although east of the town line, the road continues as Taunton Road or Durham Regional Road 4.

Steeles Avenue is a two-lane rural road till York Regional Road 69 (Ninth Line). It becomes a four lane suburban road with bicycle lanes on each side from Markham Road to Kennedy Road, six lanes from Kennedy to Victoria Park Avenue, and eight lanes from Victoria Park to Highway 404. The Toronto-York Region portion of the road is maintained by Toronto. As a result, limited planning authority is granted to the City of Toronto over York Region for lands that is within 45 metres (148 ft) of Steeles Avenue; formalized through a 1974 agreement between the City of Toronto and York Region.[6]

West of Albion Road, Steeles Avenue continues into Peel Region, where it is also designated as Peel Regional Road 15. Like the section in Toronto, Steeles Avenue in Brampton has east-west segments, this time on either side of Hurontario and Main Streets. It runs through Brampton and into Halton Region, where it is also designated as Halton Regional Road 8, through the town of Milton, ending at Appleby Line. Originally, the road had a second section west of the height of the Niagara Escarpment (the location of the Crawford Lake Conservation Area), which ran from just east of Guelph Line west to the Milborough Townline on the boundary between Milton and Hamilton, but this section was renamed to Conservation Road and is thus no longer part of Steeles.

The area consists of parklands in the east end, a mix of commercial and residential in the middle, and industrial zones near the west end. Like many other east-west arterial roads within Toronto and York Region, Steeles is divided into an east and west segment by Yonge Street.

Public transit

Toronto and York Region

Steeles Avenue, near its intersection with Warden Avenue.

The road is served predominantly by TTC bus routes 53 Steeles East and 60 Steeles West. Both routes turn south at Yonge Street to terminate at Finch Station on the eastern portion of the Line 1 Yonge–University subway line. There are also two counterpart express bus routes during the rush hours, 953 Steeles East Express and 960 Steeles West Express, as well as two overnight Blue Night routes, 353 and 360. YRT route 88 also passes a short portion of Steeles West.

Several TTC bus routes provide service on north-south arterial roads in York Region that continue north from Toronto on a contractual basis. Steeles forms the fare zone boundary, and extra fare is required for bus riders to continue across it.

On December 17, 2017, an extension of the western portion of the Line 1 subway up to Vaughan was opened, passing through York University, with a station at Steeles called Pioneer Village, which was named after the nearby Black Creek Pioneer Village heritage museum (as opposed to simply having a West designation as is the practice on most of the western section of the line). Unlike TTC-contracted bus routes however, no extra fare is charged when crossing Steeles on the subway, due the difficulty of implementing a payment-on-exit system.[7] MoveOntario 2020 also includes plans to extend the Yonge branch north and add a station at Steeles.

Brampton

In Brampton, Brampton Transit routes 11 Steels, 51 Hereford, and 511 Züm Steels (bus rapid transit) run along much of the street in Brampton. The 11A branch of route 11 serves the street from Brampton Gateway Terminal to Humber College, while limited trips along route 11 and all 511 Züm Steels trips run from Lisgar GO Station to Humber College.[8][9] Route 51 Hereford serves the route west of Brampton Gateway Terminal to Mississauga Road.[10] In addition, several other routes run along it for shorter stretches.

Milton

In Milton, Milton Transit operates 2 routes that run along part of Steeles Avenue: 1 Industrial and 2 Main. Route 2 runs between Lawson Road and Thompson Road before going south.[11] Route 1 is split into 3 branches, 1A, 1B and 1C. Routes 1A and 1B are separate directions in a loop, running on Steeles between Industrial Drive and Ontario Street and Thompson Road and Esquesing Line while route 1C operates on the section of Steeles between Martin Street and Ontario Street.[11]

Canadian Automobile Association rating

Steeles Avenue was listed by the CAA as the "worst road in Ontario" for 2006, and as the fifth-worst road in October 2007. In October 2008, it was again crowned the worst road in Ontario.[12] Reasons include potholes and general quality of surface. Soon after the results of CAA's survey were made public, some parts of the road between Dufferin Street and Bayview Avenue were resurfaced. The results of the 2009 survey listed Steeles as Ontario's worst road, for the second year in a row.

However, in 2010, Steeles Avenue was resurfaced from Yonge Street to Markham Road, with the funds coming from the federal infrastructure stimulus program, and the CAA named it the "Best Road in Ontario".[13]

Landmarks

Landmarks and notable sites along Steeles from west to east

Landmark	Cross street	Notes	Image
Crawford Lake Conservation Area	Guelph Line	Former separate section of road west of Guelph Line now known as Conservation Road
Rattlesnake Point	Appleby Line, Guelph Line	Road now officially begins at Appleby Line
Toronto Premium Outlets	Trafalgar Road	First Premium Outlets Center in Canada
Sheridan College-Davis Campus	McLaughlin Road	Sheridan’s largest campus, educating nearly 8,000 students.
Shoppers World Brampton	Hurontario Street	Road becomes Steeles West and Steeles East
Bramalea GO Station	Bramalea Road
Wet 'n' Wild Toronto	Finch Avenue West	Canada's largest waterpark
Black Creek Pioneer Village	Jane Street
Pioneer Village station	Northwest Gate
York University	Keele Street, Founders Road, Murray Ross Parkway	Toronto's second largest university
Centerpoint Mall	Yonge Street	Formerly Towne and Countrye Square
Brebeuf College School	Conacher Drive
Pacific Mall	Kennedy Road	largest indoor Chinese Asian mall in North America
Market Village	Kennedy Road, Redlea Avenue	Currently closed on March 1, 2018. To be replaced by Remington Centre
Splendid China Mall	Kennedy Road, Redlea Avenue	Former Canadian Tire store
Milliken GO Station	Old Kennedy Road, Silverstar Boulevard	Station moved across the street from Markham to Toronto
Cedar Brae Golf & Country Club	Staines Road	Road enters Rouge Park. Formerly Cedar Brook Golf and Country Club c. 1922
Menno-Reesor House (6461 Steels Avenue East)	Littles Road	Home and barn will be renovated as part of the Toronto Wildlife Centre development[14]

References

1. "Steeles Ave. route". Google Maps. Retrieved April 2, 2017.
2. https://torontosun.com/news/local-news/the-way-we-were-redeveloping-yonge-and-steeles
3. Toronto Archives photo
4. http://news.milton.halinet.on.ca/2497237/page/11?n=
5. https://www.toronto.ca/community-people/get-involved/public-consultations/infrastructure-projects/steelesmorningside/
6. Alcoba, Natalie (26 March 2011). "Who's afraid of Shops on Steeles?". National Post. Postmedia Network Inc. Retrieved 29 July 2020.
7. James Bow. "A History of Subways on Bloor and Queen Streets: Celebrating the Subway's first stop in the suburbs". Transit Toronto.
8. "Route 11/11A Steeles Schedule" (PDF). brampton.ca. City of Brampton. 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
9. "Route 511 Züm Steeles Schedule" (PDF). brampton.ca. City of Brampton. 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
10. "Route 51 Hereford Schedule" (PDF). brampton.ca. City of Brampton. 2019. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
11. "Transit Map" (PDF). milton.ca. Town of Milton. Retrieved 14 January 2020.
12. "Ontario's Worst Roads Final Results". 2007-10-04. Archived from the original on 2007-10-06. Retrieved 2007-10-06.
13. Rush, Curtis (2010-10-28). "Federal infrastructure money resurfaced Steeles Ave. from Yonge St., to Markham Rd., which is now the Best Road in Ontario". The Star. Toronto. Retrieved 2010-10-28.
14. https://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/mmis/2014/sc/bgrd/backgroundfile-69799.pdf