King's Highway 18, commonly referred to as Highway 18 was the longest highway in Essex County, Ontario, and travelled through the most communities. Today, it is known as County Road 20. From 1930 to 1998, much of the road was Highway 18, but was turned back on April 1, 1998.
Route description
From here, it becomes very unclear and contradictory as to whether Highway 18 travelled east along E.C. Row to the Huron Church Road interchange, or north-west along Sandwich Parkway to Sandwich Street and Riverside Drive, to terminate at the foot of Ouellette Avenue. This was compounded by the fact that E.C. Row had the secret 7000-series highway designation of Highway 7087. The City of Windsor had assumed all control of Highway 18 within its limits, which are north of Morton Drive, but since Highway 18 was signed along E.C. Row to Highway 3 in the period of 1993 to 1998, it is assumed that this is its terminus. While Highway 18 was under provincial control, the road was simply known as Seacliff Drive in Leamington, and travelled from its intersection with Highway 18, to County Road 37, east of the town. When the road was deleted as a Provincial highway, the designation of CR 20 was extended on the entire path of Highway 18. When the government began downloading provincial highways to the individual counties, districts, regions, towns, and cities on April 1, 1997, the part of road between Ruthven and Leamington was turned back and re-designated as an extension of Essex CR 20. In return, Highway 18 was briefly re-routed along Essex County Road 45, to Highway 3 in Ruthven. This was a temporary measure, as the rest of the Highway was gone from the network as of January 1, 1998. The road is fairly heavily travelled, particularly between the major communities, such as Kingsville and Leamington, and from Amherstburg north to LaSalle and Windsor. The road also contains the Heritage Highway and Detroit River Heritage Parkway designations for most of its length. The road is four-lanes from Amherstburg to Windsor, but is generally 2 lanes for the remainder of its routing.
History
The route of former Highway 18 is far different from its original one, which was commissioned in 1930. It was supposed to be an "alternate route" to Highway 2 from Windsor to Tilbury, but was much more direct, so Highway 2 was re-aligned along Highway 18's path. In turn, Highway 18 was extended to travel from Windsor to Amherstburg and Leamington before Highway 2 absorbed its former path from Windsor to Tilbury. The new Windsor-Amherstburg-Leamington alignment was 79 km in length, and was almost entirely paved. There was one large gap of gravel from Amherstburg to Kingsville. The road started at Highway 3A at the entrance of the Detroit-Windsor Tunnel, and ran along a huge loop along the western and southern edges of Essex County, to meet back up with Highway 3 in Leamington. By 1935, Highway 18 was paved between Harrow and Kingsville, and from Amherstburg to Malden Centre. The final gap of gravel was from Malden Centre to Kingsville, and that was paved in 1937. The highway was gradually widened to accommodate rising traffic volumes, mainly from Amherstburg to Windsor. In 1982, the E.C. Row Expressway was extended from Huron Church Road in Windsor, west to Ojibway Parkway. During the construction of the E. C. Row Expressway in the 1960s and 1970s, the road was upgraded to four lanes wide, as a temporary measure to see a potential extension of E.C. Row built all the way to Amherstburg. This never materialised, however, and the expressway simply feeds onto Ojibway Parkway and County Road 20. Before being extended along the entire routing of Highway 18, Essex County Road 20 travelled from Erie Street in downtown Leamington, for 7 km due-east along Seacliff Drive, before terminating at the intersection with County Road 37 near Hillman Marsh. West of the intersection with Erie Street, was Highway 18.
