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Ontario Highway 401 facts for kids

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Highway 401 shield A Macdonald–Cartier Freeway reassurance marker

Highway 401
Macdonald–Cartier Freeway
Highway 401 runs along southern Ontario connecting Windsor, Toronto and the Quebec border.
Highway 401 within Ontario, Canada
Route information
Maintained by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario
Length 817.9 km (508.2 mi)
History
  • Proposed 1938
  • Opened December 1947 – October 11, 1968
Major junctions
West end  Highway 3 to Windsor
 
East end A-20 towards Montreal, QC
Location
Major cities: Windsor, London, Kitchener, Mississauga, Toronto, Oshawa, Kingston and Cornwall
Highway system
  • Ontario provincial highways
Highway 400 Highway 402

Ontario Highway 401, also called King's Highway 401, is a provincial highway in southern Ontario, Canada. It is 817.9 kilometres (508.2 miles) long. It starts near Ontario's border with Quebec, where the road is called Quebec Autoroute 20. The western end of the highway is in Windsor.

Construction on the highway started in 1947. By 1952, three different parts of the highway were finished, with the three parts connected by 1964. In 2013, another part of the highway was started. This part would extend the highway to the New International Trade Crossing at the Canadian-U.S. border near Detroit.

In 2008, part of the highway between Trenton and Toronto was called the "Highway of Heroes". This was because many Canadian soldiers who were killed overseas arrived at the Trenton airforce base. Their bodies were then transported along the highway to Toronto.

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