Yonge Street

Encyclopedia : Y : YO : YON : Yonge Street

:"Yonge" redirects here. For , see .

A sign for Yonge Street at the intersection with Maitland Street.

A "downtown Yonge" pylon near the intersection with College and Carlton Streets.

Looking south along Yonge Street, near the intersection with Gerrard Street.

The Toronto Eaton Centre on Yonge Street south of Dundas.

College Park, located at Yonge and College.

Sam the Record Man, located at Yonge and Gould.

The start of Yonge Street, next to Lake Ontario.

Yonge Street (pronounced "young"), located in Ontario, Canada, is a major arterial street in Toronto and its northern suburbs, and is known as Ontario Provincial Highway 11 in most extraurban areas. Yonge Street has been listed in the Guinness Book of Records as the longest street in the world, but there is an objection noting that it is not continuous in either name or physicality. (A map of its thousand-mile length is laid into the sidewalk in bronze at the southwest corner of Yonge and Dundas Streets.)

Yonge Street is home or close to many attractions in Toronto, including street and theatre performances, the Eaton Centre, Dundas Square, the Hockey Hall of Fame, Sam the Record Man, and at the very start of the road, 'One Yonge Street', the offices of the Toronto Star. The Yonge Line of the Toronto Subway runs under and in open cuts beside Yonge Street from south of King Street to Finch Avenue. The Viva Blue BRT line continues along Yonge from Finch to Newmarket Terminal.

Contents

1 Alignment
2 History
3 Attractions/points of interest
4 See also
5 Reference
6 External links

Alignment

Yonge Street starts at the edge of Lake Ontario in Toronto. From there, it runs north to Cochrane (about as far north as the roads run, and the junction of the Ontario Northland Polar Bear Express rail line), gradually turns to the west as it goes around Lake Superior to Thunder Bay, and then runs to the town of Rainy River, bordering the state of Minnesota, United States. As 'Highway 11', Yonge Street officially stretched 1,896 km (1,178 miles), but changes in provincial responsibility separated the now locally funded and controlled Yonge Street from Highway 11 during the 1990s. As a result, Provincial Highway 11 does not start until after the city of Barrie, Ontario (or Crown Hill), just north of where the name "Yonge Street" ends, although there is a break in the naming in Bradford where it is called Bridge Street, Holland Street and Barrie Street and takes a right turn to continue north. This has led to disputes over the "longest street in the world" claim.

South of Lawrence Avenue, Yonge Street is a four-lane historic urban arterial through residential and commercial areas with heavy pedestrian traffic. Between Lawrence and Highway 401 (exit 369), Yonge opens up somewhat into parkland of the West Don Valley (Hoggs Hollow) and lower-density residential areas. Between Highways 401 and 407 (exit 77), densities and traffic increase as Yonge becomes a six-lane principal urban arterial road through North York Civic Centre and an older section of Thornhill. Beyond Highway 407 (remaining a principal arterial road), Yonge is a suburban commercial strip (with several exceptions in historic areas), with sections of residential and still-undeveloped land through Newmarket.

The speed limits are generally 50 km/h (30 mph) in most of the city of Toronto and through Thornhill, 60 km/h (35-40 mph) on a short section through the West Don Valley and again in most of the suburban sections north of the 407 (dropping back to 50 at times in some historic areas), and 70-80 km/h (45-50 mph) in undeveloped or lightly developed areas in the northern sections.

North of Steeles, Yonge Street is referred to as York Regional Road 51 and former Ontario Provincial Highway 11 as York Regional Road 1.

Yonge Street also serves as the dividing line for roads in Toronto and York Region running parallel to Lake Ontario. The western section of an east-west street (e.g. Queen Street West, Bloor Street West or Major Mackenzie Drive West) lies to the west of Yonge, while its eastern section lies east of Yonge. Yonge is also the zero-numbering point for those east-west streets; block numbers on such streets increase as one moves further away from Yonge.

History

Yonge Street is said to have started as a trail created by Huron Indians. The trail was used by numerous European explorers, such as Samuel de Champlain in 1615, and later became a military route. It was named Yonge Street in 1793, after Sir George Yonge, the British Secretary of War at the time, by John Graves Simcoe, the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada (now Ontario). Simcoe also chose the site around the road as the Town of York (now Toronto), and had it paved to allow easier use by the military as a north-south route.

Attractions/points of interest

BCE Place
Hockey Hall of Fame
Eaton Centre
Dundas Square
College Park
Mel Lastman Square
Centerpoint Mall
Sheppard Centre
Empress Walk
Toronto Star Building at One Yonge Street
Yonge Street marker at the foot of Yonge at Queen's Quay

Reference

[History of King's Highway 11 (Toronto - North Bay)]

External links