:''For the electoral district, see
Cambridge (electoral district). For the former township in Ontario, see
Cambridge Township, Ontario.''
'Cambridge' (
2006 population 120,371) is a city located on the
Grand River and
Speed River in the
Region of Waterloo,
Ontario,
Canada.
History
Cambridge was formed in 1973 when the city of 'Galt' merged with the towns of 'Preston' and 'Hespeler' and parts of the townships of Waterloo and North Dumfries. When amalgamation plans were first announced, the combined city was to be named Galt, but Preston and Hespeler successfully petitioned the province to instead give the city a new name, to be selected by a referendum on choices submitted by the three members. A ruffled Galt submitted ‘Blair’, while Preston and Hespeler combined to back ‘Cambridge’, after ‘Cambridge Mills’, an early name for the settlement that became Preston.
The first mayor of Cambridge was 'Claudette Millar', who at the time was one of the few female mayors, and at 35 the youngest mayor, in Canada.
On
May 17,
1974 flooding on the Grand River was so intense it filled city streets with water to a depth of about four feet. Hundreds of businesses and homes were severely damaged.
Economy
In 1988,
Toyota Motor Manufacturing Canada opened a plant in Cambridge, which employed 4,300 people as of July 2005 and is by far the city’s largest employer. Although highly beneficial to the town, traffic issues caused by slow-moving and long trains passing through main traffic routes to deliver material to the plant have caused some frustration in residents. Several other industrial companies also call Cambridge home, including [Gerdau Ameristeel],
ATS Automation Tooling Systems,
Frito-Lay Canada (formerly Hostess),
Babcock and Wilcox,
Northstar Aerospace, and
Com Dev.
Education
A satellite campus of
Conestoga College is located within the city, and the
University of Waterloo School of Architecture has moved to downtown Cambridge.
Public english-language schooling is provided by the
Waterloo Region District School Board, which operates 26 elementary and five secondary schools in Cambridge. High schools in the city include the 150-year old
Galt Collegiate Institute and Vocational School , Ontario's oldest continuously operating public high school. Commonly called the ''Castle on the
Grand'' because of the architecture and imposing view on the east bank of the River.
Publicly-funded Catholic education is available through schools operated by the
Waterloo Catholic District School Board. The WCDSB runs 15 elementary and two secondary schools in the city. Cambridge is also home to the only French Catholic High School in the region;
École secondaire Père-René-de-Galinée.
Even with a handful of new schools opening their doors in the city, the literacy rate still hovers at an unimpressive 91%, well below the national average.
Attractions
Cambridge is home to a number of unambitious cultural events and activities, including the ''Mill Race Festival''
[1] and ''Rock the Mill''
[2] music festivals in downtown Galt. It should be noted, however, that the city has come under scrutiny for not providing young people sufficient recreational activities, leading to a high percentage of drug use. Sadly, going to Tim Horton's is considered a "night on the town". Young people have been forced to look to surrounding cities to fill this cultural void.
Demographics
Cambridge has been characterised by rapid growth in recent years. According to the 2006 Census, the city has a population of 120,371. This represents an increase of 9.1 percent, or 10,000 people, in five years. The municipality is 112.86 square kilometres in size.
According to the most recent figures, Cambridge is overwhelmingly populated by people of a European ethnic background - 90.2%
[3], mostly those of
English,
Scottish,
Irish,
Portuguese,
German, and
Italian origins
[4]. The old West Galt area is known for its mostly white population, especially in the
Southwood Secondary School area. The other areas of Cambridge are considered far more diverse. Many
Newfoundlanders (mostly from the
Conception Bay and
Bell Island area) have migrated to Cambridge. There is also a significant Franco-Ontarien population in Cambridge.
The city is largely
Christian at 80.2%, followed by non-religious people who number 15%.
Muslims and
Hindus make a little over 5% each. Over the last few years the numbers of Indians, pakistanis and Afghanis moving in from oter urban areas or immigrating from their respective countries, has doubbled and trippled. Cambridge is also much younger than the national average. 21.6% of the population are under 14 years of age. Only 11% of the population is over 65 resulting in an average age of 35.2 significantly lower than the national average.
Transport
Roads
Cambridge straddles
Highway 401, with interchanges at Townline Road (Exit 286), Franklin Boulevard (Partial Exit - 284), Hespeler Road (Exit 282), Shantz Hill Road/King Street Kitchener (Exit 278), Fountain Street/Homer Watson Blvd., Kitchener (Exit 275), and Cedar Creek Road (Exit 268); in good traffic, it is a drive of about an hour to
Toronto and about 40-45 minutes to
Lester B. Pearson International Airport.
Highway 8 (Ontario) travels through the city as Shantz Hill Road, King Street (Preston), Coronation Boulevard, and Dundas Street, linking Cambridge to
Kitchener and
Waterloo in the north, and
Hamilton in the south.
Highway 24 runs through Cambridge as Hespeler Road (the former Queen Street and Guelph Avenue access into Hespeler were by-passed in the 1990s), Water Street, and Ainslie Street, connecting to
Guelph in the northeast and
Brantford in the south.
Public transportation
Since 2000, public transport throughout the
Region of Waterloo has been provided by
Grand River Transit, which was created by a merger of the former 'Cambridge Transit' and 'Kitchener Transit'.
GRT operates a number of routes in Cambridge, four of which travel outside of the city: presently the 52, 61 and 72 buses run to southern
Kitchener, while the
iXpress limited-stop express route runs from Cambridge through Kitchener to the north end of
Waterloo. More than 80 percent of GRT’s fleet consists of low-floor vehicles such as the
Nova LFS. Low-floor buses run on highly-travelled routes including iXpress, while high-floor vehicles remain operating on routes with low ridership, such as routes 66 and 53.
Intercity service is served by
Greyhound Lines, from a terminal near
Highway 401 and Hespeler Road. Commuter service to and from Toronto is the key routing, and no local trips are permitted to or from
Kitchener.
Coach Canada, who eventually took over
Hamilton Street Railway’s Canada Coach Lines from Trentway-Wagar, still run almost every two hours during the daytime between
Hamilton and
Kitchener, and connect to
Niagara Falls. As noted below, other services have been cancelled over the last decade within the region, and between other centres, such as
Guelph,
Brantford,
Elmira, and
Tillsonburg.
Railways
Although freight trains serving the
Toyota factory are a common sight in Cambridge, the city at present has no passenger rail service. The nearest
VIA Rail stations in the
Quebec City-Windsor Corridor are
Kitchener station and
Guelph station, on a northern route, and
Brantford’s on a southern route. Public transport connections from Cambridge to the Kitchener station have improved since
Grand River Transit’s creation and expansion, but to the Guelph and Brantford stations are non-existent, especially after the demise of the Overland Coaches Van service between Guelph and
Simcoe in early 2004.
The most easily-accessible
GO Transit railway station is
Milton station. City councillors, Regional councillors and public petitions have called for the extension of GO trains from Milton to Cambridge, but at present GO's plans to extend train service to Cambridge are beyond the 10-year capital forecast, which is also well beyond bus links along the 401 which has been announced as an interim feeder service,
Greyhound Lines has been reported to be a major player in the proposed bus links between Cambridge and the GTA.
Air
The closest airport to Cambridge is the
Region of Waterloo International Airport in nearby Breslau, but while it is a thriving
general-aviation field, it has (as at 2007) scheduled flights only to
Detroit and Calgary, although it has most recently added flights to Cuba, Mexico and Dominican Republic offered through Sunquest Vacations and Signature Vacations. Most air travellers use either
Toronto’s
Lester B. Pearson International Airport,
Hamilton’s
John C. Munro International Airport or
Buffalo Niagara International Airport over the border in
Buffalo, New York. There are no permanent public transport links from Cambridge to any of these airports.
Media
Politics
Members of Parliament
Location from Cambridge
Cambridge neighbourhoods
Orientation note: Because Cambridge has three distinct historical business districts surviving from each of its constituent municipalities (from before amalgamation in 1973), it seems more neutral and more convenient to orient people by "the Delta". The Delta is the nickname given to the intersection of Highways 8 and 24 in the industrial zone located where the growing Preston and Galt first came together. These highways cross at a very acute angle, which presents challenges to motorists.
References
1. Mill Race Festival homepage
2. Rock the Mill music festival homepage
3. Cambridge ON statistical data from StatsCan
4. Cambridge ON ethnicity data from StatsCan
External links
★
City of Cambridge official site
★
Cambridge Tourism site
★
Grand River Transit (serving Waterloo, Kitchener and Cambridge)
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