If you see a sign saying 30km to Toronto Ontario where is it measured t?

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Jim B

Actually, the measurement is from or to, the city hall or municipal building, in EACH city , town, or village.

So, in the case of Toronto, the measurement starts, or ends at Queen Street West and Bay Street, the closest intersection to the Toronto City Hall building, at Nathan Phillips Square.

The same rule applies across Canada.

Ever hear of a "benchmark " ? This is a permanent metal marker, usually embedded in the outside wall of a public building. that is used as a starting point for doing a survey. This is the best way to get accurate distances, and there are more than half a million of them, all across Canada. Military maps show them as the symbol BM, and in that application, they are used to line up artillery gun positions, to get better accuracy.

A bench mark is usually made of bronze , and has a standard wording, that identifies it's number and location site. They are about 6 inches in diameter.

Jim B. Toronto.

ryan j

the brass rail on young street

CanProf

It used to be that distance signage was measured from a city or town hall but that is no longer the case, in fact it hasn't been for some time. Instead, distance is measured from some convenient land mark near the centre of the city or town in question. Now for some places that might mean the city hall but clearly Toronto City Hall is not anywhere near the centre of the city. I don't actually know what has been chosen (the MTO would though) but it is not City Hall.

Good question.

EastSide

Downtown Toronto... If you are on the 401 its Yonge Street, if you are on the Gardiner/QEQ its Yonge Street, if you are on the 404 its the Gardiner

Dangermanmi6

I'll go with JIm B's answer except for the part about BM = bench marks for artillery they are surveyed points on the Ordinance Survey Topographical Maps that are available to everyone. Military maps generally use a grid system to identify a particular place on the map without references to lat & long.

The BMs are before the days of sat nav where it cost a lot of time and effort to survey a spot so these bench marks were established around the country as accurately surveyed spots (point of reference) so that surveyors could quickly establish where a thing was.

Sawbuck

I'm not sure where you could go to verify this one. But I seem to recall reading somewhere that the point of measurement is the principal post office in the city. In the case of Toronto, that is on the south side of Front Street between Yonge and Bay.

I'm also not sure what another person meant by saying Toronto City Hall was nowhere near the centre of the city. Queen and Bay is as central a location as you could possibly want, smack-dab in the centre of the central business district, right on a major east west street and in between two of the major north-south streets.

Nick J

I think its to the edge of town.

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