The Connecting Link program is a provincial subsidy provided to municipalities to assist with road construction, maintenance and repairs in the

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

province of

Ontario Ontario is the southernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Located in Central Canada, Ontario is the Population of Canada by province and territory, country's most populous province. As of the 2021 Canadian census, it ...

. Roads which are designated as ''connecting links'' form the portions of provincial highways through built-up communities which are not owned by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO). Connecting links are governed by several regulations, including section 144, subsection 31.1 of the

Highway Traffic Act The ''Highway Traffic Act'' (, HTA; "the Act") is a statute in Ontario, Canada, which regulates the licensing of vehicles, classification of traffic offences, administration of loads, classification of vehicles and other transport-related issue ...

and section 21 of the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act. While the road is under local control and can be modified to their needs, extensions and traffic signals require the approval of the MTO to be constructed. The Connecting Link program was established in 1927. Today, of roadway in 77 municipalities are maintained under the program. These links cross 70 bridges also maintained under the program. In return for that particular road being downloaded, the town or county receives money and assistance in maintaining it, and is able to still sign and list it as a

provincial highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either numbered or maintained by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a state or ...

, though not all connecting links are signed as provincial highways. Some connecting links (typically in cases of municipal streets urbanized before the provincial highway system was established), however, were never provincial-maintained highways at all, but rather local streets or even county or regional roads that the town, city, county, or region has assistance in maintaining. During the large-scale downloading of many provincial highways in 1997, many connecting links were repealed when their parent highways were decommissioned. However, in some cases, where a highway terminated in a city, only the connecting links through the urbanized areas were repealed, while the rest of the highway remained under provincial jurisdiction. An example of this was Highway 10 through

Mississauga Mississauga is a Canadian city in the province of Ontario. Situated on the north-western shore of Lake Ontario in the Regional Municipality of Peel, it borders Toronto (Etobicoke) to the east, Brampton to the north, Milton to the northwest, ...

and

Brampton Brampton is a city in the Canadian Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Ontario, and the regional seat of the Regional Municipality of Peel. It is part of the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) and is a List of municipalities in Ontario#L ...

. In one unique case, Highway 11A, the entire highway was decommissioned as a result of it being a connecting link for its full length. Most connecting links are busy municipal or county roads that were once provincial highways, and are designated by small yellow squares or diamonds with the text "C/L" or "CL" on them at their start and end termini. These are similar to, but not always related to 7000-series highways.

Current links

The following table lists the current connecting links in the province by highway.

References

External links

* {{Ontario numbered roads Connecting Link

Current links

See also

References

External links