Roads in Waterloo, Guelph and Elmira make CAA’s worst roads list

CP24’s Courtney Heels speaks with CAA’s Teresa Di Felice about the annual list of Ontario’s worst roads and the key factors behind the rankings.

Waterloo, Guelph and Elmira have made the Canadian Automobile Association’s list of worst roads in Ontario.

Ira Needles Boulevard in Waterloo ranked second in the campaign’s western region, which included Brant, Huron, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxford, Perth County and Waterloo Region.

Teresa Di Felice, assistant vice president of government and community relations at CAA, said the Worst Roads campaign is information sought by the public.

“The Worst Roads campaign has been going on for over 20 years and the reason why we keep offering it is because people take to it,” said Felice. “It’s really about giving people a say and people come to the campaign for different reasons to nominate a road.”

Felice said choosing roads for the campaign comes down to potholes and poor road surface but often times, the public nominates roads that cause traffic congestion or have no sidewalks or bike lanes.

In the case of Ira Needles Boulevard, near Victoria Street South, Felice said people who nominated the road said it had pothole issues, poor road surface and a lack of bike lanes.

Felice also said roundabouts can also talk some getting used to, something Ira Needles Boulevard has multiple of down its stretch of road.

“Roundabouts are becoming very popular in Ontario. In fact, they they actually can help move traffic more quickly with less opportunities for collisions,” said Felice. “That being said, it takes a little bit of a learning curve as people are getting used to [having to] navigate a roundabout and who has the right of way. It can be a little bit more challenging when it comes to construction and, paving because, you know, it’s not like a traditional intersection where you can move everybody over to one lane.”

York Road in Guelph dropped from first place last year to fourth in 2025, with potholes and traffic congestion cited as the issues.

This was also the third year in a row that Ira Needles Boulevard and York Road made the CAA’s worst roads list.

Rounding out the top five were two roads in Elmira. Arthur Street South and Barnswallow Drive both tied for last place in the western division for their poor road surface.

“A lot of what we were hearing from people is the road surface. So, they want to see some of that potholes maintained,” said Felice.

The CAA’s list, which was released on Thursday, was as follows:

1. Dundas Street, London
2. Ira Needles Boulevard, Waterloo
3. York Street, London
4. York Road, Guelph
5. Arthur Street South and Barnswallow Drive in Elmira

While Waterloo, Guelph and Elmira were the worst in the region, they did not even rank in the top ten across Ontario.

Here are what CAA has named as the worst roads for 2025:

1. Aberdeen Avenue, Hamilton
2. Barton Street East, Hamilton
3. County Road 49, Prince Edward County
4. Eglinton Avenue West, Toronto
5. Hurontario Street, Mississauga
6. Leveque Road, South Frontenac
7. Highway 50, Caledon
8. Sider Road, Fort Erie
9. Gardiner Expressway, Toronto
10. Sheppard Avenue West, Toronto

The selection process

Roads can be nominated by anyone but Felice said CAA also uses a partner, made up of contractors and construction officials, to analyze nominated roads’ infrastructure.

Felice said 2,400 roads were nominated in 2025 from 208 different municipalities.

The CAA shares the information they gather with the provincial government in hopes to get support and funding for rural road infrastructure.

“I think that’s something we’re going to see a lot of. We’ve already started to hear out a lot about that in the provincial budgets and... from the Prime Minister,” said Felice. “There’s some announcements about some relief for rural communities to have a pothole fund from the province of Ontario.”