The
Ministry of Transportation of Ontario (
MTO) is the provincial
ministry of the
government of Ontario which is responsible for
transport infrastructure and related
law in
Ontario. The ministry traces its roots back over a century to the 1890s, when the province began training Provincial Road Building Instructors. In 1916, the
Department of Highways (DOH) was formed and tasked with establishing a network of provincial highways. The first was designated on 1918, and by the summer of 1925, sixteen highways were numbered. In the mid-1920s, a new
Department of Northern Development (DND) was created to manage infrastructure improvements in
northern Ontario; it merged with the DOH on April 1, 1937. In 1972, the Department of Highways was reorganized as the
Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MTC), which then became the Ministry of Transportation in 1987.