A municipal expressway[1] in Ontario is a controlled-access highway maintained by an individual municipality rather than the provincial government. Municipal expressways are not a part of the Ontario Provincial Highway Network. Instead, they form parts of the different municipal road networks in Ontario.
The first expressway built under municipal jurisdiction was the Gardiner Expressway as a part of the expressway system proposed for Toronto by Metropolitan Toronto. Several highways were built and transferred since then with the biggest transfers happening during the 1997-1998 downloads, with Ottawa Road 174, Ontario Highway 2A, and sections of the Queen Elizabeth Way being converted to municipal expressways.[2] [3]
In November 2023, the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario reached an agreement to upload the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, transferring responsibility for the maintenance of the highway to the provincial government. The deal freed up over in the city's budget.[4] In March 2024, a similar deal was reached between the City of Ottawa and the Government of Ontario to upload Ottawa Road 174 to the provincial government as a part of a larger agreement.[5]
Municipal expressways have been seen as a substantial financial burden for the municipalities that have to operate and maintain them. As a result, several municipalities have expressed interested for the responsibility of the highways to be uploaded to the provincial government. In 2014, the ideal of uploading Hamilton's two municipal expressways, the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and the Red Hill Valley Parkway. At the time, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario said there was no precedent for such an upload.[6]
Following the deal made between the City of Toronto and the Government of Ontario to upload the Don Valley Parkway and the Gardiner Expressway, several other municipalities also expressed interested in uploading their municipal expressways. The Hamilton's city council passed a motion to request that the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario take over the Lincoln M. Alexander Parkway and the Red Hill Valley Parkway.[7] The mayor of Windsor also asked the province about uploading the E. C. Row Expressway.[8]