Канада-АҚШ шекарасындағы 3-тас жолының сипаттамасы

Ontario provincial highway

The western segment of Highway 3 begins at the Ambassador Bridge, which connects Canada with the U. S. state of Michigan over the Detroit River. The five lane highway travels southeast through Windsor along Huron Church Road, surrounded by residential subdivisions, then curves east along Talbot Road. The section through Windsor to Cabana Road is maintained under a Connecting Link agreement. Between the E. C. Row Expressway and Howard Ave, Highway 3 runs adjacent to the Rt. Hon. Herb Gray Parkway portion of Highway 401. At Essex County Road 11, Highway 3 enters rural southwestern Ontario, and is dominated by farmland for much of its length through Essex County. The now four laned route becomes divided as it follows the Essex Bypass around the southern edge of Essex, with commercial services lining the highway, primarily on the north side. Returning to farmland and narrowing to a two lane undivided road, the highway continues southeast, passing nearby, but avoiding, several small communities that the original highway travelled through. After passing Essex County Road 18, the route curves eastward, passing north of Kingsville before entering Leamington along its northern fringe. At the eastern end, Highway 3 turns south onto Centennial Road and then east onto Talbot Line, following the historic Talbot Trail to east of Aylmer.

Highway 3 was the only Ontario provincial highway to both start and end at international crossings with the United States (the Ambassador Bridge leading into Detroit, Michigan and the Peace Bridge leading into Buffalo, New York, respectively). From Chicago, Toledo, and Detroit to Buffalo and Western New York, Highway 3 was shorter and more direct than any American route (including Interstate 90), because the Lake Erie shoreline dips south along Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York. After the 1954 New York State Thruway opened from Buffalo to New York City, Michigan officials had encouraged Ontario to replace Highway 3 with a toll road connecting Detroit to Buffalo. When the Michigan Department of Transportation discontinued US 25 in 1973, much of it through Detroit was redesignated as M 3, whose southern terminus came at Clark Street in Detroit, at the junction of I 75 by the Ambassador Bridge. This provided a connection between Michigan's M 3 and Ontario's Highway 3 until 2001, when jurisdictional changes within downtown Detroit created a discontinuous segment of M 3, and this international Route 3 connection was lost when the portion of M 3 along Fort Street was redesignated M 85. Highway 3 has been largely replaced as a Detroit–Buffalo truck route by portions of Highway 401, Highway 403 and the Queen Elizabeth Way. Although Highway 3 is a shorter distance between Detroit and Buffalo than the aforementioned 400 series highways, plus Highway 3 does not have to climb the Niagara Escarpment unlike parallel portions of Highway 403 (the Chedoke Expressway section) and the QEW, there has been traffic preference for these higher speed 400 series highways which are also routed through major cities (London, Hamilton, St. Catharines) and which have in turn received more upgrades and extensions. During this time the only upgrades to Highway 3 were the Essex Bypass and St. Thomas Expressway, as the rest of the route remained a two lane road passing through small communities. The last section of Highway 403 between Brantford and Ancaster opened in August 1997, making for a continuous express route between Windsor and Fort Erie, replacing Highway 2 which had been the previous link from Highway 401 to the Ancaster Hamilton segment of Highway 403. This left a local section of Highway 3 on Windsor surface streets as a bottleneck, however this will be bypassed by the Highway 401 extension (Windsor–Essex Parkway) to the Gordie Howe International Bridge to Detroit in 2025.

The history of Highway 3 dates back over 200 years to the pioneering settlement era of Upper Canada following the American Revolution and the resulting influx of United Empire Loyalists. Thomas Talbot, an influential scion who joined the British army at the age of 11, would challenge the government, the terrain, and the forces of nature to see to it that his road be built. Due to his family legacy, Talbot worked through the ranks quickly and found himself a personal aide to John Graves Simcoe, the first Lieutenant Governor of Upper Canada. He returned to England after Simcoe fell ill, but vowed to return to the hinterland he had come to love. Talbot returned to Upper Canada in 1803 with four families and a letter from Lord Hobart authorizing his grant, and established what is now the town of Port Stanley. Wishing to expand his grant and create his ideal colony, Talbot sought out new settlers; a road was required. Talbot approached the new Lieutenant Governor – Francis Gore – in 1808 with the intent of persuading him to fund the building of the road. He insisted that a road would increase the value of the land in the surrounding townships, as well as providing a greater incentive for newcomers to settle in what was otherwise a desolate wilderness. Gore instructed deputy surveyor Mahlon Burwell to "Build a road one chain wide, laid out on the principle of Yonge Street with lots on each side." Burwell began this work in 1809 westward from Delhi. In 1811, he was tasked with surveying the West Talbot Road from Talbotville Royale to Amherstburg. By then, a road was already opened between Port Talbot and Talbotville Royale. Construction of the new road proved far more difficult than first imagined. Workers followed an old Native American trail, wholly consumed by nature, between Delhi and Port Talbot. To get across the numerous swamps, felled trees were laid across the path to create a corduroy road, much to the chagrin of settlers. The outbreak of the War of 1812 would temporarily halt further construction. When it resumed in 1816, Talbot himself began directing the surveyor, ordering that the road remain on the highest ground possible. This led to an irregular and winding route between Aylmer and Delhi. By 1830, the corduroy logs had been removed and the road improved and extended from Amherstburg to Canborough.

East of Canborough, Highway 3 follows several early settlement trails: Forks Road between Dunnville and Chambers Corners, Sherk's Road through Port Colborne to Gasline, and the military Garrison Road through Fort Erie. These roads predate the land survey grid of concession roads and sidelines, which would be used by the provincial government to make Highway 3 a continuous route through the Niagara Peninsula where none previously existed. Sherk's Road was built at the request of Elias Sherk (d. 1893) in 1858 to connect his house (the historic Danner House) with his and Michael Gondor's properties. The irregular road connected the Welland Canal at Humberstone (now Port Colborne) to the community of Ridgeway, where it met the west end of the Garrison Road. That road was built due to the threat of American attack to provide quick access from Fort Erie, and, like other military roads in Upper Canada (e. g. Dundas Street or Yonge Street), it travelled in a straight line, in this case parallel to the Lake Erie shoreline. However, it would not receive a route number until the summer of 1925. Four significant changes to Highway 3 have taken place since the designation of the route in 1920. The first was an adjustment to the eastern terminus. As part of the "spirit of cooperation" that inundated Canada and the US following World War I, as well as to celebrate a century of peace, a new bridge was planned between Fort Erie and Buffalo alongside the international railway crossing. Construction began in 1925; the completed bridge opened to traffic on June 1, 1927. Two months later, on August 7, the bridge was formally dedicated as the Peace Bridge by US Vice President Charles Dawes, and Edward, Prince of Wales. Traffic patterns quickly shifted to take advantage of the new crossing and the bypass of Niagara Falls that it provided. In foresight of this, the Department of Public Highways took control of a Welland County road between Chambers Corners and Fort Erie on May 11, 1927. This roadway, which followed a significant portion of Sherk's Road and the Garrison Road, in addition to a concession road built west from Port Colborne and north through Wainfleet village, was designated as Highway 3A. The following year it was surfaced with concrete and a new bridge built over the Welland Canal in Port Colborne. The new route became so popular that in 1929 the Highway 3 and Highway 3A designations were swapped.

The Essex Bypass was opened in stages in the 1970s and early 1980s. Plans were completed in 1968 as part of a province wide program to bypass small towns on busy provincial highways. The first stage, opened by 1972, began west of Maidstone and passed south of Essex, where it then routed along Malden Road to its former alignment (now Essex County Road 34). Construction of an eastward extension to Ruthven was underway by 1982, and completed in 1983, with the road following Union Road to the old alignment. Construction of a final extension, from Union Road north of Ruthven to past Highway 77 on the northern fringe of Leamington, was underway in late 1998; Although the Leamington Bypass was constructed by the Ministry of Transportation (MTO), It is signed as Essex County Road 33, as Leamington is planning to link the discontinuous segments of County Road 33 with the East Side Arterial Road. The Essex Bypass, completed around the village of Essex in 1972, It was announced in June 2006 that the entire bypass would be widened to four lanes with a grassy median separating the opposing flows of traffic. The three phase project began in September 2007 with a stretch between Maidstone and County Road 8 west of Essex. The four laned highway opened in June 2009 at a cost of C$20.7 million. The C$22.1 million second phase involved widening the highway between Walker Road and Maidstone to a five lane cross section, and began in mid November 2009. It was completed in early 2012. Despite concerns raised by Crozier in 2006 that the project would be halted after the first phase, which were dismissed at the time, Three months after Crozier's unexpected death on June 3, 2011, the entire Essex Bypass was renamed the Bruce Crozier Way in honour of his commitment to the widening of the highway.

The St. Thomas expressway was built along the northern edge of that city beginning in 1974. It features six overpasses and a single interchange, at First Avenue. A ribbon cutting ceremony was held on September 7, 1981 to officially open the new route, which bypassed the former Highway 3 alignment along Talbot Street and the short concurrency with Highway 4 (Sunset Drive). The bypass cost C$16.5 million to construct, and features a two lane roadway with allotted space on the north side for a second two lane roadway. Plans originally called for the expressway to extend further east to New Sarum and later even as far as Aylmer, but these have never materialized. However, budget constraints brought on by a recession in the 1990s resulted in the Mike Harris provincial government forming the Who Does What? committee to determine cost cutting measures in order to balance the budget after a deficit incurred by former premier Bob Rae. It was determined that many Ontario highways no longer served long distance traffic movement and should therefore be maintained by local or regional levels of government. The MTO consequently transferred many highways to lower levels of government in 1997 and 1998, removing a significant percentage of the provincial highway network. Highway 3 served as one of the principal highways through southwestern Ontario, since this Detroit–Buffalo route is more direct with a shorter distance than using the below mentioned 400 series highways, and furthermore Highway 3 does not have to climb the Niagara Escarpment unlike parallel portions of Highway 403 (the Chedoke Expressway section) and the QEW. Nonetheless, due to traffic preference for higher speed freeways which have in turn received more upgrades and extensions, Highway 3 had been largely supplanted by the combination of Highway 401 (segments which have been widened since the 1990s), Highway 403 (particularly the completion of the Woodstock Brantford Ancaster sections in 1997 which makes for a continuous express link), and the QEW as a through route. As a result, portions of Highway 3 through the Regional Municipality of Niagara were transferred to the region on April 1, 1997, including a segment through Port Colborne (most of which had existed as a Connecting Link) and a segment in Fort Erie. To the west, a segment of the route paralleling Highway 401 between Leamington and Talbotville Royal was decommissioned on January 1, 1998 and transferred to Essex County, Chatham–Kent and Elgin County. It has since been designated as Essex County Road 34, Chatham–Kent Road 3 and Elgin County Road 3. However, this never came to pass due to opposition from Windsor city councillors. In 2004, a joint announcement by the federal government of the United States and Government of Canada confirmed that a new border crossing would be constructed between Detroit and Windsor. The Detroit River International Crossing (DRIC) was formed as a bi national committee to manage the project. The MTO took advantage of this opportunity to extend Highway 401 to the international border and began an environmental assessment on the entire project in late 2005. with an expected completion date of mid 2015 for the first phase and 2015 16 for the remainder of the parkway. In early 2015, it was announced that the parkway would open to traffic between Highway 3 and Labelle Street (near the E. C. Row Expressway) in the spring. The existing segment of Highway 3 (Talbot Road and Huron Church Road) from the E. C. Row Expressway to just east of Outer Drive was realigned to free up right of way for the Highway 401 extension which was built below grade in a trench with tunnels to cross underneath surface streets (including those carrying the Highway 3 routing). The old split interchange between Highway 3 (Talbot Road) and Highway 401 was replaced by an all direction junction incorporating a roundabout, from which a new alignment of Talbot Road bypassed the intersection with Outer Drive (which had traffic lights added in 2006) just each of the former split. The Highway 401 extension runs parallel to (but does not replace) Highway 3 until the E. C. Row Expressway. After an interchange to Highway 3 and Labelle Street, the Highway 401 extension then changed direction where it runs parallel westward for , then it turned northwest and follow a new alignment to the under construction Gordie Howe International Bridge (formerly the Detroit River International Crossing and the New International Trade Crossing) border crossing. The new concrete structure was opened to traffic on June 20, 2014, and the former structure was demolished after that. On November 4 and December 4 of that year, construction on the bridge was halted by the Haudenosaunee Confederacy Chiefs Council on the claim that the structure impeded on land reserved for a towpath along the Grand River by the Six Nations of the Grand River First Nation. The remaining work included a scheduled three day closure during which the new bridge was jacked north to align with the former structure, as well as decorative work. Work was completed in the autumn of 2015. Early construction work is underway as of March 2021 to twin approximately of Highway3 around the town of Essex, including interchange improvements at Essex County Road8 (Maidstone Avenue), and a grade separation at North Malden Road/ Victoria Avenue. Further expansion from east of Essex to Leamington is currently under detailed design and engineering.