Department of Highways
| Ministère des transports (French) | |
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| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | 1916 |
| Preceding agencies |
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| Jurisdiction | Government of Ontario |
| Headquarters | 301 St. Paul Street St. Catharines 1201 Wilson Avenue Downsview 77 Wellesley Street West Toronto |
| Agency executives |
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| Parent agency | Government of Ontario |
| Website | http://www.mto.gov.on.ca/ |
The Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (MTO) is the provincial ministry of the government of Ontario which is responsible for transport infrastructure and related law in Ontario. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, when the province began training Provincial Road Building Instructors. In 1916, the Department of Highways (DOH) was formed and tasked with establishing a network of provincial highways. The first was designated on 1918, and by the summer of 1925, sixteen highways were numbered. In the mid-1920s, a new Department of Northern Development (DND) was created to manage infrastructure improvements in northern Ontario; it merged with the DOH on April 1, 1937. In 1972, the Department of Highways was reorganized as the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MTC), which then became the Ministry of Transportation in 1987.
The ministry is in charge of various aspects of transportation in Ontario, including the establishment and maintenance of the provincial highway system, the licensing and training of vehicles and drivers, and the policing of provincial roads, enforced by the Ontario Provincial Police.
The MTO is responsible for:
The province began training Provincial Road Building Instructors in 1896. These instructors worked to establish specifications for the almost 90,000 kilometres (56,000 mi) of county- and township- maintained roads. That same year, the Ontario Good Roads Association was formed. Under considerable pressure from the Good Roads Association and the ever increasing number of drivers, which the province itself licensed at that time, the Department of Highways was formed in 1916 with the goal of creating a provincial highway network. The DOH assumed its first highway, the Provincial Highway on August 21, 1917. On February 20, 1920, the DOH assumed several hundred kilometres of new highways, formally establishing the Provincial Highway System.
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