TORONTO — The posted limit on long stretches of Highway 401 and Highway 403 rose to 110 km/h on Monday, the latest step in Queen’s Park’s plan to put most of Ontario’s 400-series network at the speed those roads were designed to carry.The Ministry of Transportation said the new signs took effect on Highway 401 from Merlin Road in Chatham-Kent to Highway 427 near Toronto Pearson International Airport; from Highway 404 to Highway 35/115 in Clarington; from Cobourg to Colborne; from Sidney Street to the CNR overhead bridge in Belleville; and from County Road 38 to Highway 15. Highway 403 from Highway 401 to Middletown Line also moved to 110 km/h.Transportation Minister Prabmeet Sarkaria announced the 938-kilometre expansion on June 24 in King City. Before this year’s rollout, 873 km were already posted at 110 km/h after pilots in 2022 and 2024. By Sept. 30, the province says about 89% of the controlled-access network will carry that limit, up from 43%. Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia already treat 110 km/h as standard on comparable freeways. New builds, including Highway 413 and the Bradford Bypass, are being designed for the same posted speed.Sarkaria has said earlier 110 km/h stretches — more than 800 km — have not seen a rise in fatalities. That is the government’s safety case. What it has not released is a collision rate per vehicle-kilometre on those sections. Raw death totals move with traffic volume. A rate sheet would show whether the posted limit is the variable. Until MTO publishes one, the claim is incomplete..The timing still has to live next to a worse year on Ontario roads. The OPP Highway Safety Division said in June that 133 people had died in crashes it investigated in 2026, up 22% from the same period last year. Those files exclude Peel, Halton and Durham. Toronto police separately told CBC News that city fatalities from Jan. 1 to June 1 were up 28% from 2025. Sgt. Murray Campbell said speed was a factor in many of those urban crashes, often with distraction. That count is mostly city streets, pedestrians and motorcyclists, not the 401.Ontario’s preliminary 2024 report put speed-related deaths at 155, or 25% of 617 people killed on provincial roads. Those figures predate Monday’s signs. They do not prove the new limit will raise the toll. They are the baseline the ministry now has to beat.The live infrastructure gap is narrower. CBC News reported safety advocates in southwestern Ontario were concerned about raising speeds on parts of the 401 that still lack concrete median barriers Queen’s Park promised years ago. Tilbury to Merlin was converted in 2023. The run east toward London has not been finished. Heavy trucks also stay capped at 105 km/h, so cars and transports will legally run at different speeds on the same pavement.Ten days before the 403 change, a 78-year-old woman was killed on the westbound 403 at Dundas Street East in Oakville after her SUV stalled in a live lane and was struck by a tractor-trailer. The posted limit that night was still 100 km/h. While OPP have not blamed the crash on speed, it is the same highway Monday’s signs now cover, and the same mix of cars and heavy trucks. Transports remain capped at 105 km/h.The Highway Traffic Act is unchanged. Sixteen to 29 km/h over the limit still means demerit points. Fifty km/h over is still stunt driving. On a 110 km/h road, that line is 160 km/h. Further stretches of the 403, 404, 406, 407, 412 and 418 are scheduled for Sept. 30. Driving 110 km/h on a segment that has not yet been changed is still considered speeding..WATCH: Woman, 78, killed after SUV breaks down on Hwy. 403 in Oakville
