The Ministry of Transportation (MTO), Ontario, Canada, was born 100 years ago. The Department of Public Highways of Ontario (DPHO), as the ministry was then called, was established on January 17, 1916. It had only 35 employees—including engineers, surveyors and clerical staff. Airplanes were a brand new technology. Cars were the new hot thing to own, there were no traffic lights, and no driver’s licenses.
There was only one problem: there weren’t any official provincial highways. At the time, Ontario’s road system consisted of 50,000 km of gravel along which Ontario’s 54,500 registered vehicles bounced and rattled an impressive 15 miles per hour (24 km/h). These gravel roads formed a network across the province along with 40,000 km of macadamized dirt roads. But it would go on to turn a province of dirt and macadam roads into one of the largest and safest road networks in the world, and create a multi-modal system connecting the province from Manitoba to Quebec, and from the Great Lakes to Hudson’s Bay. It would innovate new design and construction technologies, introduce GO Transit, and establish the COMPASS traffic management system. It would change the way of life for northern communities by building 29 remote airports, change island communities by launching all-year ferry systems, fight congestion and pollution by opening HOV lanes. And more recently, allowing automated vehicles on Ontario’s roads.
1917 – FIRST ALL-CONCRETE HIGHWAY:
The Toronto-Hamilton:
The DPHO had a vision for Ontario’s future which included connecting the whole province with network of smooth and safe paved highways. Its task was to plan, build and maintain these roads to serve the growing population of motorists. In some towns, labor was so scarce that absolutely no road maintenance could be completed. “Unnecessary labor of all kinds, and unnecessary expenditure should undoubtedly be avoided in time of [World War I], not merely on the part of national and municipal governments, but also by the individual citizen,” wrote W.A. McLean, the department’s First Deputy Minister, in the 1917 annual report.
However, provincial funding was provided for essential local road maintenance and for building the first all-concrete highway. This highway—between Toronto and Hamilton—was officially opened to traffic in November 1917 and would figure prominently in the subsequent development of southern Ontario.
Please view the video above (2:22).
To read the entire history of The Ministry of Transportation, please go to: http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/english/about/mto-100/index.shtml.