Kipling Avenue

Kipling Avenue

Highway 409 above Kipling Avenue
Maintained by	City of Toronto
Length	19.0 km (11.8 mi)
Location	Toronto
South end	Lake Shore Boulevard
Major junctions	Gardiner Expressway Bloor Street / Dundas Street Eglinton Avenue  Highway 401  Highway 409 Albion Road
North end	Steeles Avenue
East	Islington Avenue
West	Martin Grove Road

Kipling Avenue, originally named Mimico Avenue, is a street in the Etobicoke district of Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is a concession road, 6 concessions (12 km) from Yonge Street, and is a major north–south arterial road that also extends beyond Toronto, into the Regional Municipality of York.

The street was surveyed in 1795 as a Meridian Street south of the east-west Meridian (now Rathburn Road) with lots to the east running east–west and lots to the west running north–south, a pattern later subdivisions preserved in modern side streets. Most of the road traverses residential neighbourhoods and pockets of industrial and commercial hubs.

The street goes through such areas as New Toronto, Etobicoke Centre, Richview, and Rexdale.

Originally named Mimico Avenue, the street became a central street for the lake shore municipalities of New Toronto (in which it is situated) and Long Branch. It is believed (but unproven) that the street was named in honour of Rudyard Kipling, author of such works as The Jungle Book and the Just So Stories, in preparation for a planned visit to Woodbridge in 1907. Kipling cancelled at the last moment, but the street retained the name.

The Kipling Avenue section in the Town of New Toronto also reverted to its alternate name, Eighteenth Street, at least twice.

The Toronto Transit Commission's 45 Kipling, 44 Kipling South and 188 Kipling South Rocket bus routes operate from Kipling Station on the Bloor-Danforth line. These surface routes provide service along the length of the road.