Highbury Avenue begins at South Edgeware Road in St. Thomas

St. Thomas, Ontario

St. Thomas is a city in southern , Ontario, Canada. It is the seat for Elgin County and gained its city charter on March 4, 1881.-History:...

 where it proceeds north as a two lane highway (Elgin County Road 30) until Wilton Grove Road in London. From there it briefly becomes a four-lane, 4.5 km (2.8 mi) expressway

Limited-access road

A limited-access road known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway and expressway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which has many or most characteristics of a controlled-access highway , including limited or no access to adjacent...

 north from Highway 401 to Hamilton Road.
It then continues north as a four-lane arterial street through the rest of London.

At approximately Fanshawe Park Road, Highbury Avenue continues north from London as a two-lane highway (Middlesex County Road 23), where it ends at Elginfield Road (Highway 7

Ontario Highway 7

King's Highway 7, commonly referred to as Highway 7 and historically as the Northern Highway, is a provincially maintained highway in the Canadian province of Ontario...

).

History

The expressway portion was built in 1966. This road was originally planned to be completed as part of a network of expressways to serve London along the Thames River

Thames River (Ontario)

The Thames River is located in southwestern Ontario, Canada.The Thames flows west through southwestern Ontario, through the cities of Woodstock, London and Chatham to Lighthouse Cove on Lake St. Clair...

. However, local opposition led to this expressway portion of Highbury ending at Hamilton Road.. The road was given provincial highway status as Highway 126 on December 9, 1963.
For a time the expressway portion of the road was unofficially named "George Wenige Expressway" after a former mayor of London, George Wenige

George Wenige

George Albert Wenige was an eccentric mayor of London, Ontario, Canada, who served nine terms, mostly non-consecutively.Wenige was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1874 and moved to London, Ontario, Canada as a stunt bicycle rider at the Western Fair in 1900. He liked the city and decided to stay,...

. There were also plans to extend the expressway south to St. Thomas, but these plans were shelved.

In 1989, the interchange at the intersection of Bradley Avenue and Highbury was completed. In 1991, responsibility for Highway 126 was transferred from the provincial government to the City of London. Later in 1994, the Highbury Avenue interchange and overpass at Highway 401 was reconstructed. The reconstruction led to the cloverleaf interchange

Cloverleaf interchange

A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange in which left turns, reverse direction in left-driving regions, are handled by ramp roads...

 being converted to a Parclo

Parclo interchange

A partial cloverleaf interchange or parclo is a modification of a cloverleaf interchange. The parclo interchange was developed by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation as a replacement for the cloverleaf on 400-Series Highways, removing the dangerous weaving patterns and allowing for more...

-A4 interchange configuration with traffic light

Traffic light

Traffic lights, which may also be known as stoplights, traffic lamps, traffic signals, signal lights, robots or semaphore, are signalling devices positioned at road intersections, pedestrian crossings and other locations to control competing flows of traffic...

s, no longer being completely controlled-access (freeway-to-freeway).

Major intersections

The following table lists the major intersections along the portion of Highbury Avenue that was once assumed by the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario. The road continues north and south of these points, but distances are not available.

Location	km Kilometre The kilometre is a unit of length in the metric system, equal to one thousand metres and is therefore exactly equal to the distance travelled by light in free space in of a second...	Destinations	Notes
London London, Ontario London is a city in Southwestern Ontario, Canada, situated along the Quebec City – Windsor Corridor. The city has a population of 352,395, and the metropolitan area has a population of 457,720, according to the 2006 Canadian census; the metro population in 2009 was estimated at 489,274. The city...	0.0
	0.8		Formerly a cloverleaf interchange Cloverleaf interchange A cloverleaf interchange is a two-level interchange in which left turns, reverse direction in left-driving regions, are handled by ramp roads...
	1.8	Bradley Avenue
	4.0	Commissioners Road	Two additional ramps proposed
	5.6	Hamilton Road	At-grade intersection; End of expressway portion
	7.6	Dundas Street Dundas Street Dundas Street, also known as Highway 5 west of Toronto, is a major arterial road connecting the centre of that city with its western suburbs and southwestern Ontario beyond...	Formerly Highway 2 Ontario Highway 2 King's Highway 2, usually referred to simply as Highway 2 is a provincially maintained highway in Ontario. Once the primary east–west route across the southern end of the province, Highway 2 became mostly redundant in the 1960s following the completion of Highway 401, which more or less...
	11.7	Kilally Road	End of former Highway 126; Highbury Avenue continues north as Middlesex County Road 23