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Dundas Street () is a major historic arterial road in Ontario, Canada. The road connects the city of Toronto with its western suburbs and several cities in southwestern Ontario. Four provincial highways—2, 5, 6 and 99—followed long sections of its course, although these highway segments have since been downloaded to the municipalities they passed through. Originally intended as a military route to connect the shipping port of York (now Toronto) to the envisioned future capital of London, Ontario, the street today connects Toronto landmarks such as Sankofa Square and the city's principal Chinatown to rural villages and the regional centres of Hamilton and London.
A historic alternate name for the street was Governor's Road, as its construction was supervised by John Graves Simcoe, lieutenant governor of Upper Canada; and the section between Hamilton and Paris still bears that name, albeit without an apostrophe.
Dundas Street is also one of the few east-west routes to run uninterrupted through the central and western Greater Toronto Area, from Toronto to Hamilton (the others are Lake Shore Boulevard/Lakeshore Road, Eglinton Avenue, Steeles Avenue/Taunton Road, Queen Street (Brampton)/Highway 7, and Bovaird Drive/Castlemore Road/Rutherford Road/Carrville Road/16th Avenue). Within Toronto, the TTC's 505 Dundas streetcar route serves the street from Riverdale to the Junction.
Following controversy over the namesake of the street, Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, in delaying the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, a petition with 14,000 signatures was submitted requesting Dundas Street be renamed. Toronto City Council voted in 2021 to rename the section of the street within Toronto – with other municipalities reviewing their use of the name. In 2023, the work to rename the road was paused by Toronto City Council.
Crossing the lower reaches of the Don River west of Broadview Avenue, Dundas serves as one of the few arterial roads connecting the Downtown Toronto to the city's East Toronto. At Yonge Street, Dundas passes Sankofa Square, within sight of downtown landmarks such as the Eaton Centre and Toronto Metropolitan University. Designated Dundas Street West from this point westward, the route passes to the north of Toronto City Hall and Nathan Phillips Square. At McCaul Street, the road fronts the Art Gallery of Ontario in proximity to some of the city's institutions of higher learning, including OCAD University, Michener Institute, and the University of Toronto. At Spadina Avenue, Dundas serves as the east–west axis of the city's largest Chinatown, with the Chinatown sections of Dundas (from Beverly Street in the east to Kensington Avenue in the west) having street signs in Chinese as 登打士街, which is the same as Dundas Street in the Kowloon Peninsula of Hong Kong.
West of Ossington Avenue, it meanders northwards towards Bloor Street near the intersection of Roncesvalles Avenue, heading north toward the Junction district at Keele Street. Proceeding due west from Keele through the Junction, Dundas parallels the CP Rail line through the mixed industrial-residential district. At Scarlett Road, the route veers southwest toward a high crossing over the Humber River valley, through the former village of Lambton Mills. Beyond the river, Dundas serves as the northern boundary of the Kingsway residential district. Passing the historic St. George's Church-on-the-Hill, Dundas again heads southwest toward the former village of Islington. This route traverses the west end of the city, avoiding obstacles that were expensive to negotiate in the 18th century, such as Grenadier Pond in what is now High Park and the highest point of the Humber Valley (Bloor Street to the south requires a high bridge to cross the river at that point).
Dundas intersects for a second time with Bloor Street at Kipling Avenue in Etobicoke. In 1961, the intersection was rebuilt into a highway-type interchange, with an overpass over Kipling. The City of Toronto demolished the interchange and replaced it with a new at-grade intersection. A new routing of Dundas Street to the south of the former interchange was opened in February 2019, connecting via Dunbloor Road (which was rechristened to be a part of Dundas for continuity) to the section east of Kipling. From Kipling, Dundas is a six-lane arterial road, and began to follow the former Highway 5 (which ran along the more direct Bloor east of that point). West of Cloverdale Mall, Dundas Street meets Highway 427 at a parclo interchange.
Upon crossing the Toronto boundary at Etobicoke Creek, the street enters Mississauga, in the Peel Region and follows a southwestern heading. It then enters Halton Region and passes through Oakville and Burlington, and then Waterdown (a part of Hamilton). It leaves the former Highway 5 alignment (which continues west as a still-provincially maintained highway through rural Brant County) west of Highway 6 in Waterdown, and resumes to the south in its namesake former town Dundas (today also part of Hamilton) and follows the former Highway 99 (now Hamilton Road 99) and assumes its alternate name, Governors Road, after crossing Main Street (the original Highway 8). It follows the entire length of former Hwy. 99 west to Osborne Corners where it follows former Highway 5 again to Paris, where it joined former Highway 2 and picks up the name Dundas again. Through most of Paris, Highway 2 bypasses it as it becomes a broken residential street, but rejoins it to follow King Edward Street. The name again resumes west of Paris as the street proceeds west along the former highway through Woodstock en route to London.
In London, the street ends just east of the confluence of the Thames River before it crosses the Kensington Bridge to west London. Originally, this section was called "Dundas Street West" with the eastern portion being "Dundas Street East". However, since construction in the mid-1980s, the entire western portion has been called "Riverside Drive". Some Londoners still refer to the non-renamed portion "Dundas Street East" though it no longer bears an "East" designation. Riverside Drive ends further west at junction with Boler Road and Sanatorium Road.
Northeast of Yonge and Dundas is the Ryerson University campus. To the east of downtown, Dundas travels through the older Cabbagetown neighbourhood, and the large Regent Park public housing project fills the block south of Dundas between Parliament Street and River Street.
The Dundas and Bay Street area, west to University Avenue, has been developing into a Japantown district. It was previously the location of Toronto's original Chinatown.
In 1796, Dundas Street was extended from just west of what is today Highway 6 east towards York. The road was constructed away from the lake shore, and the American border, so a communication link could be maintained in the event of an invasion. This new section of the street to York was detached from the section from London to Dundas. Instead, the two sections were connected by York Road, which traversed the section of the Niagara Escarpment between them along the path of modern day York Road, Valley Road, and Patterson Road. Beyond York, Dundas Street was extended further eastwards as a part of what later became Highway 2. (1984). 9780774393881, Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Communications, Historical Committee. ISBN 9780774393881
In York the road followed the path of today's Bloor Street within Etobicoke, crossing into York Township near the Old Mill. From the Old Mill, the street travelled north to Davenport Road, until it met Yonge Street. During the War of 1812, the route through Toronto moved south and a bridge was built by 1815 to cross the Humber near Lambton, followed by a series of other bridges over the years. Dundas was re-routed in 1928, which resulted in what is now Old Dundas Street on either side of the Humber. The western section of Old Dundas Street becomes Home Smith Park Road. The current bridge over the Humber opened in 1957 (repaired in 1973 and 2009) to replace the 1907 iron trestle that lost approaches on both ends during Hurricane Hazel in 1954 and resulted in the old bridge being demolished in 1955. An 1800 map shows Dundas connecting with the newly built Yonge Street, although the map does not show the route of this section within Toronto with any detail. An 1816 map of York shows a "Burlington Road", which was a westward extension of today's Queen Street.
Dundas was not formally surveyed through York Township, so the name was not consistently used to describe roads. Before 1812, a portion of Davenport Road was sometimes called Dundas Street, but also the "road to Niagara." The first section of the current route of Dundas Street constructed in Toronto was constructed during the War of 1812. The portion constructed in 1812, connected today's intersection of Queen Street and Ossington Avenue to Lambton Mills. It was constructed by the militia under the supervision of George Taylor Denison. The section of today's Ossington Avenue from Queen Street north to the intersection of Dundas Street was also known as Dundas. At the time, the district along Dundas was not cleared. Montgomery's Inn was built on Dundas Street in 1830 for travellers along this route and also became a center of neighbourhood business in the village of Islington. It stands today, operated as a museum by the City of Toronto.
From Ossington Avenue to the east, Dundas was pieced together from various streets. In the latter half of the 19th century, Arthur Street was connected from Ossington Avenue and Dundas Street to Bathurst Street along the current alignment of Dundas. St. Patrick Street, the portion of today's Dundas from Bathurst Street to (east of McCaul Street it was called Anderson Street) College Avenue (now University Avenue) bisected the Grange estate in 1877. The section from College Avenue (now University Avenue) to Yonge Street was known as Agnes Street. East of Yonge, it was Crookshank Street, Wilton Street, with a portion called Wilton Crescent (George Street to Sherbourne Avenue), and finally Beech Street to River Street. Beyond River, Dundas was severed until a steel Arch bridge was built over the Don River in 1910–1911. From 1922 to 1923, the jog from Agnes Street to Wilton was eliminated, tearing down several buildings at the intersection with Victoria Street and chopping a section off of 171 Victoria Street (the former home of Egerton Ryerson) and renumbering it as 38–40 Dundas Street East. East of the Don, various streets were connected by jogs in the 20th century to form the current road. From the 1920s until the 1940s, Dundas Street terminated at Broadview Avenue in the east. In the 1950s, the city of Toronto implemented a project to extend Dundas eastwards from Broadview to Kingston Road as a new four-lane traffic arterial in order to provide an alternative east–west route to Gerrard and Queen. From west to east, Crawford Street, Elliot Street, Whitby Street, Dickens, Dagmar, Doel, Applegrove and Ashbridge Avenues as well as Maughan Crescent and Hemlock Avenue were all cleared and widened. In some cases, alleyways were used to connect these nine separate streets.
Through Mississauga, it is served by the MiWay bus routes 1/1C and 101/101A starting from the Kipling Bus Terminal next to Kipling station. In Oakville, the Oakville Transit bus route 5 runs on Dundas street between the border with Mississauga and Highway 407. In Burlington, Dundas Street has no dedicated transit route and only has transit service until Guelph Line with the Burlington Transit bus routes 2, 3, 6, and 11 and Oakville Transit bus route 5 all providing service along different sections of the street. In Hamilton, Dundas Street is served by the Hamilton Street Railway bus route 18 through Waterdown.
In London, the under construction East London Link BRT line, being built by the City Of London will use Dundas Street for part of its route from Ontario Street to Highbury Avenue. The Dundas Street segment is set to open in the summer of 2025. This project is being built as part of the London Rapid Transit plan.
The city's final report, published in June 2021, supported renaming the street, concluding that Dundas "played an instrumental role in delaying the abolition of the slave trade" and that this conflicts with "the values of equity and inclusion" of the city. The city's process also sparked reviews of the use of the Dundas name in other areas of the province, including Mississauga, London and Hamilton.
On July 6, 2021, the City of Toronto's executive committee unanimously supported the renaming of Dundas Street. During public deputations, former Governor General Adrienne Clarkson stated that "the name of Dundas has no relevance to Canada ... he has no connection to Toronto". On July 14, Toronto City Council voted 17–7 to rename the street, with a new name to be chosen by April 2022. On December 14, 2023, Toronto city council decided to rename a few city landmarks containing the name Dundas, but not Dundas Street due to cost.
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