Greater Sudbury Municipal Road 55 is a municipal road in the city of

Greater Sudbury Sudbury, officially the City of Greater Sudbury, is the largest city in Northern Ontario by population, with a population of 166,004 at the 2021 Canadian Census. By land area, it is the largest in Ontario and the List of the largest cities and t ...

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 ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its Provinces and territories of Canada, ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, making it the world's List of coun ...

. Extending from Whitefish to Coniston under a variety of street names, most of the road's length is a former alignment of Highway 17 and the

Trans-Canada Highway The Trans-Canada Highway (Canadian French, French: ; abbreviated as the TCH or T-Can) is a transcontinental federal–provincial highway system that travels through all ten provinces of Canada, from the Pacific Ocean on the west coast to the A ...

except for a short realignment on different streets through the city's downtown core. The road's western terminus is a grade-level intersection with Highway 17 just west of Whitefish, approximately one kilometre east of where the four-lane

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway, and expressway. Other similar terms ...

segment of Highway 17 begins. The intersection is expected to be converted to a full freeway interchange as the freeway is extended westward. Through the

Walden ''Walden'' (; first published as ''Walden; or, Life in the Woods'') is an 1854 book by American transcendentalism, transcendentalist writer Henry David Thoreau. The text is a reflection upon the author's simple living in natural surroundings. T ...

area, the road's only official street name is Municipal Road 55, although the informal name Old Highway 17 may also be used. In Waters, just west of Municipal Road 24 into Lively, the road widens into a dual carriageway, and interchanges with Highway 17 just east of Mikkola. This portion of the route was decommissioned as part of the provincial highway system in 1980 with the construction of the freeway segment. From the Mikkola interchange easterly, however, the route continued to hold the Highway 17 designation until the completion of the Southeast Bypass in 1995. This portion of the route continues east as an at-grade expressway into Copper Cliff, where the median narrows to a paved strip until reaching the Big Nickel Road interchange. At that interchange, the road narrows back down to a single carriageway, albeit one with multiple lanes of traffic in each direction, and no longer has any access control. The roadway also picks up its first true street name, Lorne Street, at the same interchange. Lorne Street continues to travel in a northeasterly direction into

Downtown ''Downtown'' is a term primarily used in American and Canadian English to refer to a city's sometimes commercial, cultural and often the historical, political, and geographic heart. It is often synonymous with its central business district ( ...

, where the MR55 designation transfers onto Douglas Street; this represents the route's main divergence from the former route of Highway 17, which continued along Lorne past the Douglas Street intersection. MR55 follows Douglas Street a short distance easterly until a sharp bend in the road. The road then becomes Brady Street and continues into the city's downtown core. The street name later transitions to Lloyd Street, reconnecting with the former Highway 17 route, and later to The Kingsway. In 2008, the section of The Kingsway east of Falconbridge Road underwent a $6 million expansion from two lanes to four lanes. The city has also planned a short westerly extension of the Kingsway, which will bypass the primarily residential Lloyd Street by connecting the Kingsway directly to the existing intersection of Lloyd and Brady Streets; however, no time frame for this project has been announced as of 2019. The road's eastern terminus is a signalized grade-level intersection with Highway 17 near Coniston. East of that intersection, the current route of Highway 17 is a continuation of the MR55 roadway — traffic using the highway's through route must turn at the intersection.

Rerouting

In 2015, MR 55 was rerouted through downtown Sudbury. The former route followed Lorne Street to Elm Street (MR35), and then traveled east along Elm Street to an intersection with MR80. MR55 continued straight through the intersection becoming Lloyd Street. The former route rejoins the current route a short distance later at the intersection with Brady Street.

Future

As the freeway alignment of Highway 17 is extended eastward and westward from its existing termini, Municipal Road 55 may also be expanded to incorporate additional segments of the current highway alignment. The Ministry of Transportation is currently undertaking planning studies on a further realignment of the Highway 17 route through Nickel Centre toward Markstay. As well, a six-kilometre westerly extension of the existing freeway alignment in the Whitefish area, including a conversion of the existing Municipal Road 55 intersection to a full interchange, is currently in the planning stage. However, actual construction dates have not yet been announced for either project as of 2016.

Major intersections

References

{{Roads in Greater Sudbury 055 Former segments of the Trans-Canada Highway