Kipling Avenue is a street in the cities of

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

and

Vaughan Vaughan () (2021 population 323,103) is a city in Ontario, Canada. It is located in the Regional Municipality of York, just north of Toronto. Vaughan was the fastest-growing municipality in Canada between 1996 and 2006 with its population increas ...

Ontario Ontario ( ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada.Ontario is located in the geographic eastern half of Canada, but it has historically and politically been considered to be part of Central Canada. Located in Central C ...

, Canada. It is a concession road, 6 concessions (12 km) west from

Yonge Street Yonge Street (; pronounced "young") is a major arterial route in the Canadian province of Ontario connecting the shores of Lake Ontario in Toronto to Lake Simcoe, a gateway to the Upper Great Lakes. Once the southernmost leg of provincial H ...

, and is a major north–south

arterial road An arterial road or arterial thoroughfare is a high-capacity urban road that sits below freeways/motorways on the road hierarchy in terms of traffic flow and speed. The primary function of an arterial road is to deliver traffic from collector r ...

. It consists of three separate sections, with total combined length of 26.4 km. (16.4 mi.). The street travels through the district of

Etobicoke Etobicoke (, ) is an administrative district of, and one of six municipalities amalgamated into, the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Comprising the city's west-end, Etobicoke was first settled by Europeans in the 1790s, and the municipalit ...

and serves areas such as

New Toronto New Toronto is a neighbourhood and former municipality in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located in the south-west area of Toronto, along Lake Ontario. The Town of New Toronto was established in 1890, and was designed and planned as an indust ...

, Etobicoke Centre, Richview, and

Rexdale Rexdale is a neighbourhood of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located north-west of the central core, in the district of Etobicoke. Rexdale defines an area of several official neighbourhoods north of Highway 401 and east of Highway 427. Rexdale was orig ...

, passing through residential neighbourhoods and pockets of industrial and commercial areas. The

Toronto Transit Commission The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, some of which run into the Peel Region and York Region. It is the oldest and larges ...

's 45 Kipling, 44 Kipling South, 944 Kipling South Express and 945 Kipling Express bus routes operate from

Kipling Station Kipling is the western terminus station of Line 2 Bloor–Danforth of the Toronto subway system. The station is served by buses and subway trains operated by the Toronto Transit Commission and is adjacent to the Kipling GO Station on the Milton ...

on the Bloor-Danforth line. These surface routes provide service along the length of the road. Film studio complex Kipling Studio located on 777 Kipling Avenue is part of

Cinespace Film Studios Cinespace Film Studios is a series of film studio facilities founded in 1988, by Greek-Canadian Nick Mirkopoulos. It includes a facility in Vaughan, that has been in operation since the 1960s. In 2007 Mirkopoulos helped his Greek-American nepheA ...

History

Originally named Mimico Avenue, the street was surveyed in 1795 as a Meridian road south of the east-west Meridian (now Rathburn Road) with lots to the east running east–west and lots to the west running north–south, the street became a central street for the lake shore municipalities of

(in which it is situated) and Long Branch. It is believed (but unproven) that the street was named in honour of

Rudyard Kipling Joseph Rudyard Kipling ( ; 30 December 1865 – 18 January 1936)''The Times'', (London) 18 January 1936, p. 12. was an English novelist, short-story writer, poet, and journalist. He was born in British India, which inspired much of his work. ...

, author of such works as ''

The Jungle Book ''The Jungle Book'' (1894) is a collection of stories by the English author Rudyard Kipling. Most of the characters are animals such as Shere Khan the tiger and Baloo the bear, though a principal character is the boy or "man-cub" Mowgli, w ...

'' and the ''

Just So Stories ''Just So Stories for Little Children'' is a 1902 collection of origin stories by the British author Rudyard Kipling. Considered a classic of children's literature, the book is among Kipling's best known works. Kipling began working on the ...

'', in preparation for a planned visit to Woodbridge in 1907. Kipling cancelled at the last moment, but the street retained the name. The Kipling Avenue section in the Town of New Toronto also reverted to its alternate name, Eighteenth Street, at least twice. The section in Woodbridge, was named Eighth Avenue. Kipling Avenue was extended south of Lake Shore Boulevard West with the development of the former Lakeshore Psychiatric Hospital grounds. In 2001 City Council renamed the southerly extension as "Colonel Samuel Smith Park Drive", after rejecting the City Surveyor's original suggestion of Eighteenth Street.http://www.toronto.ca/legdocs/2001/agendas/council/cc010306/et2rpt/cl012.pdf The Six Points interchange with Bloor and Ontario's early Toronto-to-Hamilton highway, now Dundas has traditionally been Etobicoke's central intersection. In 1953 Etobicoke left York County and joined the newly formed

Metropolitan Toronto The Municipality of Metropolitan Toronto was an upper-tier level of municipal government in Ontario, Canada, from 1953 to 1998. It was made up of the old city of Toronto and numerous townships, towns and villages that surrounded Toronto, whic ...

launching a period of urbanization which included changing the Six Points intersection to use a number of bridges in 1961. In 2017, construction started on a project to remove the interchange and replace it with at-grade intersections. In March 2019, the interchange was closed and the bridges were removed.

Landmarks

Sights along Kipling Avenue in Toronto (north to south): * North Humber Park * North Kipling Park *

North Kipling Junior Middle School Smithfield is a neighbourhood and former village in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Some new residents of Toronto and new immigrants to Canada are attracted to this neighbourhood, mainly because there is a large amount of affordable public housing. It ...

North Albion Collegiate Institute North Albion Collegiate Institute (abbreviated as North Albion CI, NACI or North Albion) is a high school in the Etobicoke area of the city of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is part of the Toronto District School Board. Prior to 1998, it was part of ...

* Albion Centre * Albion Arena *

Toronto Public Library Toronto Public Library (TPL) (french: Bibliothèque publique de Toronto) is a public library system in Toronto, Ontario. It is the largest public library system in Canada, and in 2008 had averaged a higher circulation per capita than any other pub ...

branch * Kipling Heights Plaza * Toronto Public Library Northern Elms branch * Mississauga Private School * Monsignor Percy Johnson C.S.S. *

Etobicoke North GO Station Etobicoke North GO Station is a GO Transit train and bus station on the Kitchener line in the Etobicoke district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is located at 1949 Kipling Avenue just north of Belfield Road, close to the junction of Highways Ontar ...

* Westway Plaza * Dixon Grove Junior Middle School * Denfield Park * Islington Golf Club * Six Points interchange *

Kipling subway station Kipling is the western terminus station of Line 2 Bloor–Danforth of the Toronto subway system. The station is served by buses and subway trains operated by the Toronto Transit Commission and is adjacent to the Kipling GO Station on the Milton ...

* Kipling GO Station * Kipling- Queensway Mall * Mimico Correctional Centre * New Toronto Secondary School, now

Lakeshore Collegiate Institute Lakeshore Collegiate Institute (also referred to as LCI or Lakeshore) is a high school in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Built in 1951, Lakeshore Collegiate is a merger of New Toronto Secondary School and Alderwood Collegiate Institute. It is situate ...

Humber College The Humber College Institute of Technology & Advanced Learning, commonly known as Humber College, is a public College of Applied Arts and Technology in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Founded in 1967, Humber has two main campuses: the Humber North c ...

Lakeshore campus * Father John Redmond Catholic Secondary School * Colonel Samuel Smith Park

Beyond Toronto

Kipling Avenue remains one of two streets to go north of

Steeles Avenue Steeles Avenue is an east–west street that forms the northern city limit of Toronto and the southern limit of York Region in Ontario, Canada. It stretches across the western and central Greater Toronto Area from Appleby Line in Milton in th ...

(due to the short southward bend of Steeles) and still be within the City of Toronto (the other being Midland Avenue). It ends abruptly at the Toronto-Vaughan border. North of that border, Kipling is a broken street and appears briefly from Highway 7 to Langstaff Road. Its original alignment becomes Clarence Street until Major Mackenzie Road. It begins abruptly again south of Teston Road before finally terminating at King-Vaughan Road.

References

External links

Google Maps of Kipling Avenue
{{Roads in Vaughan Roads in Toronto Roads in the Regional Municipality of York Transport in Etobicoke

History

Landmarks

Beyond Toronto

See also

References

External links