Riverside Drive (London, Ontario)

Riverside Drive is an east-west arterial road in London, Ontario, Canada. It extends from the Forks of the Thames River in the Downtown area westward towards the suburb of Byron. The name was created due to its close proximity to the Thames River.

History

The modern-day Riverside Drive is made up of three separate London roads. The original Riverside Drive existed from the Thames River at Byron to the Canadian National Railway bridge near Mount Pleasant Cemetery; part of Mount Pleasant Avenue, which originall existed from the CNR bridge to Wharncliffe Road, and Dundas Street west of the forks of the Thames River to Wharncliffe Road.

In the 1970s, Dundas Street was extended through the Kensington neighbourhood west from Wharncliffe Road to meet Mount Pleasant Avenue west of Charles Street. This necessitated the demolition of a number of houses in Kensington. The Dundas extension was built as a four-lane facility. Previously traffic heading westbound on Dundas Street had to turn right at Wharncliffe Road in order to get to Mount Pleasant Avenue.

The original CNR bridge connecting Riverside Drive to Mount Pleasant Avenue included sharp curves at the approaches, as the bridge crossed at a 90-degree angle to the railway tracks. In 1974, the corridor was realigned with a new deck bridge located just north of the original one. This bridge was built wide enough to accommodate a four-lane road, but the road remains two lanes today. Around this time the Riverside Drive designation was extended eastward along Mount Pleasant Avenue and Dundas Street to the Kensington Bridge.

Riverside Drive was also realigned in 1977 at Hutton Road when the Guy Lombardo Bridge was built, with a four-lane diversion to the north of the original alignment.