Aug 30 2021 - Highway 8 - The Stone Road

 

Today our federal, vs provincial vs regional vs municipal levels of government go about giving each other responsibilities. Mostly downloading vs uploading responsibilities.   In the time of way-back, the government took over responsibilities.  Our Highway 8 is an example.  Originally the Iroquois Trail from ancient times, the province's Department of Highways of Ontario assumed jurisdiction the road between Hamilton and Queenston in 1918.  This road travels the entire Niagara region along the escarpment. One of the distinctions in Grimsby is the change in route so that the historic Nelles Manor (built in 1792) no longer faced the road, but backed onto it.  It rebuilt itself to have an appropriate grand entrance for the new front of the house. It was previously known as the Grimsby and Queenston Stone Roads.  Taking responsibility for it meant it was upgraded and by the early 1920s was paved. It became the King's Highway 8A in 1930.  Before that it was a "stone road".  I got to wondering about "stone roads".  There's a Niagara Stone Road that goes into Niagara-on-the-Lake.  That too was an ancient road and intersected with the Iroquois Trail. That had a long history of development from the 1830s onward so that wagons could travel on it better.   The name Niagara Stone Road came about when it was macadamized - single-sized crushed stone layers are placed in shallow lifts and compacted thoroughly.  It had a binding layer of stone dust, was rolled, and covered with a binder to keep dust and stones together.  That's the "Stone Road" designation of all these roads.  The Niagara Stone Road goes from Niagara-on-the-Lake to Homer - where the Homer Bridge is over the Canal, the name all that's left of the town.  I realize that I take roads for granted.  I hadn't thought about roads and their technological development in the last century.  A transformation ihas taken place in materials and methods used to build them. That's what infrastructure is like - we don't think about it very much, but depend on it all the time. Some model railroad images today.

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Welcome Spring and Roadwork

Just a few days ago, I captured the last of the ice at Grimsby Beach.  Yesterday it was a sea of green grass and happy dogs. Today we rush ahead to May with flowering fruit trees as our picture of the day.  This one is at Peninsula Ridge winery, on the road that leads up to the restaurant.   This will be the site of much construction this year.  A roundabout is being built at the intersection of Greenlane, Durham, Highway 8, and the entrance to Peninsula Ridge.  The work is underway already.