The Queen Elizabeth Way (commonly referred to as the QEW, Q, QE, or Queen-E) is a vital 400-Series freeway in Ontario, Canada. It links Buffalo, New York, USA and the Niagara Peninsula with Toronto and its western suburbs. The freeway starts at the Peace Bridge in Fort Erie, Ontario and continues 139 kilometres (86 mi) through Niagara Falls, St. Catharines, Hamilton, Burlington, Oakville and Mississauga before ending at the junction of Highway 427 and the Gardiner Expressway in Toronto. The QEW is one of Ontario's busier highways with over 200,000 average trips per day.
Major freeway junctions are located at Highway 420, Highway 405, Highway 406, Highway 403 in Burlington, Highway 407, Highway 403 in Oakville and Highway 427. A section of QEW through Halton Region (exits 101 through 123) has been concurrently signed with Highway 403 since 2002.
The Queen Elizabeth Way originally started as a divided-highway upgrade of the Middle Road between Highway 27 and Highway 10 in 1931. At the time, the Middle Road was one of the first examples of a divided highway anywhere in North America, and it was the forerunner to the current superhighway. Various upgrades during the 1940s and 1950s brought the Queen Elizabeth Way up to modern freeway standards between Toronto and Hamilton, and later over its entire length.
