Sheppard Avenue near Henry FarmA Sheppard Avenue East street sign which retains North York markings.
Sheppard Avenue is an east–west principal arterial road in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. The street has two distinct branches near its eastern end, with the original route being a collector road leading to Pickering via a turnoff, and the main route following a later-built roadway which runs south to Kingston Road. To avoid name duplication, the Toronto portion of the northern branch was renamed Twyn Rivers Drive. The section of the street entirely in Toronto is (34.2 km) in length,[1] while the Pickering section and Twyn Rivers Dr. is (5.4 km) long.[2]
History
An 1880s survey map of Scarborough showing the original route of Sheppard (halfway up map on right) along Twyn Rivers Drive.
Sheppard was a sideroad between lots 15 and 16 York Township[3]
In the former Scarborough municipality, Sheppard was once called the Lansing Sideroad. A post office known as "Lansing" occupied the corner of Yonge and Sheppard.[3]
Route description
Sheppard Avenue East
Sheppard Avenue is carried across the lanes of Highway 404.
East of Yonge Street, Sheppard travels east through North York to Highway 404. Historically, it continued straight to Victoria Park Avenue at the Scarborough border, where drivers then turned south to meet up with the Sheppard section through Scarborough. However, a new section called the Lansing Cutoff was constructed joining the two disconnected pieces. The orphaned section of Sheppard between the 404 and Victoria Park was renamed Old Sheppard Avenue. 43°46′34″N79°20′13″W / 43.77611°N 79.33694°W / 43.77611; -79.33694
Sheppard continues straight east through Scarborough until just east of Meadowvale Road, where the Rouge River valley presents steep grades 43°48′33″N79°09′58″W / 43.80917°N 79.16611°W / 43.80917; -79.16611, and so Sheppard curves southwards to meet Kingston Road just north of Highway 401. At that intersection, it defaults into Port Union Road, which heads south into the Port Union neighbourhood. However, the street originally continued straight east into the Rouge valley, but that section was renamed Twyn Rivers Drive after the connection to Port Union Rd. was made in the early 1950s, though the renaming was not applied to the entirety of the bypassed section (thus officially giving the street its two branches) beyond Altona Road just east of the Toronto-Pickering limits in Durham Region. It continues farther east as a collector road until it ends at Fairport Road just north of Kingston Road. 43°49′28″N79°06′26″W / 43.82444°N 79.10722°W / 43.82444; -79.10722
Sheppard Avenue West
Sheppard Avenue facing west. Leslie Street is visible in the foreground, and Allen Road in the background. The horizontal strip of buildings near the centre flankYonge Street
West of Yonge Street, Sheppard travels west across the Sheppard Avenue Bridge over the Don and past Bathurst Street and Wilson Heights Boulevard. Further west, the road allowance became blocked in 1939 by the appropriation of land for a De Havilland aircraft plant and, after World War II, Canadian Forces Base Downsview. A crescent-shaped section of road was finally constructed along the northern edge of the now former base in the 1970s, connecting Sheppard at Wilson Heights to Keele Street. 43°45′17″N79°28′42″W / 43.75472°N 79.47833°W / 43.75472; -79.47833 Today, Sheppard also intersects Allen Road on this section, but the intersecting portion of Allen Road was not constructed until 1982. Sheppard Avenue continues still further west to Weston Road and ends there due to the wide valley at the confluence of the two branches of the Humber River, preventing it from continuing further west.
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