County Road 34 (Essex County, Ontario)

Infobox road
highway_name = Essex County Road 34
alternate_name = Talbot Road
marker_

length_km = 44
maint = Maintained by the Essex County transportation department
direction_a = East
direction_b = West
starting_terminus = Chatham-Kent/Essex boundary in Wheatley, Ontario
ending_terminus = Highway 3 in Maidstone
cities = Windsor, Tecumseh, Oldcastle, Maidstone, Essex, North Ridge, Cottam, Ruthven, Ontario, Kingsville, Leamington, Ontario, Wheatley, Ontario
counties = Essex County, Ontario


established = 1809, 1818 (to Essex), finished 1823

County Road 34 is the original alignment of Highway 3 in Essex County, Ontario.

The road branches from the original Highway 3 alignment in Maidstone, Ontario (just north of Essex, Ontario, and continues east, paralleling the current Highway 3 (and South Talbot Road) 1 km to the north, and 1 km south of North Talbot Road, for most of the way to Ruthven, Ontario.

The stretch of road from Windsor, Ontario to Manning Road was built with enough right of way to be twinned into a dual carriageway in the 1930s, but this has not happened, yet.

History

Highway 3 originally travelled down CR 34's path all the way through Essex, Cottam, Ruthven, and Leamington until 1971, when the MTO decided to build a bypass around the town of Essex. This Essex By-Pass was built and opened in 1977, and was temporarily re-routed along Malden Road (Formerly an extension of CR 12, not to be confused with Highway 114 OR Essex County Road 3) to CR 34 in North Ridge while it was being extended to Ruthven. This section opened in 1982.

By 1996, the town of Leamington and Township of Gosfield South were proposing a bypass around Leamington to alleviate the traffic in the town. After a debate on where the road should go ("Think Twice, Road Built Once", as the Windsor Star reported on this), the road was built by the MTO from the current terminus of CR 34 to Highway 3 on the east side of Leamington.

Though Highway 3 east of Highway 77 was downloaded to the county as CR 34, the Leamington Bypass was built by the MTO, and the part of the bypass east of Highway 77 was numbered as CR 33 (as the town of Leamington is proposing an "East Side Arterial Road" to link up with the other CR 33).

Today

Today, County Road 34 is a quiet county road, with only a few busy spots (Essex, Ruthven, Leamington). For the most part, traffic is fairly light. It has the Talbot Trail designation from its intersection with Highway 3 in Leamington to the Essex/Chatham-Kent boundary, and it is a part of the Heritage Highway for its entire length. A couple re-alignmened curves can be seen roughly 5 km south of Cottam, as well as a former alignment "Service Road" that serves a farm residence.

See also

* List of Essex County Roads
* County Road 20

Former Provincial Highways

* Highway 2
* Highway 3
* Highway 18
* Highway 18A
* Highway 98
* Highway 107
* Highway 114

External links

* [http://www.thekingshighway.ca/Highway3.htm Highway 3 at TheKingsHighway.ca]