Corduroy road giveaway to start Friday at Waste Management Facility

Waterloo Region – Beginning Friday, residents can get their own piece of the historic corduroy road that was discovered in UpTown Waterloo during ION light rail transit (LRT) construction.

While supplies last, 100, two-foot sections of the corduroy road will be available to the public for free at the Region of Waterloo’s Waste Management Facility (925 Erb Street West, Waterloo). Residents can pick-up a piece of the corduroy road at Gate 2, near the free compost pick-up area between 7 a.m. and 6 p.m., Monday to Saturday.

To ensure that all interested residents have an opportunity to secure their own piece of the corduroy road, the Region is limiting pick-up to one piece of corduroy road per vehicle, per visit, while supplies last.

A corduroy road, or log road, is a type of road made by placing logs perpendicular to the direction of the road over a low or swampy area. The result is an improvement over impassible mud/dirt roads. Corduroy roads are the first instances of roads in Ontario.

The corduroy road in UpTown Waterloo was discovered in March by GrandLinq crews working on King Street, between William and Erb. Archaeologists have determined the cedar and elm logs are from the early 1800’s, making it one of the first roads used in Waterloo Region.

Residents are reminded that the corduroy road logs are more than 200 years old and not likely to last longer than a few years without some conservation now that they’ve been unearthed and exposed to the elements.  

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For more information, please contact:

Kimberly Moser, ION Community Relations, 519-575-4757 ext. 3461 or kmoser@regionofwaterloo.ca