Central East

Central East is the band between Harwood Avenue North and Salem Road North, from Highway 401 and the Kingston Road East retail strip up to Rossland Road East, with the Williamson Drive East streets toward Taunton Road counted here by some guides and by Northeast Ajax by others. Kingston Road East, Delaney Drive East and Clover Ridge Drive East are the streets that organize it. The Carruthers Creek valley lies just past Salem Road, and locals use names such as Clover Ridge and Applecroft for its pockets.

The streets closest to Kingston Road East, such as Ritchie Avenue and the blocks around Mandrake Street, are the oldest, with bungalows, side-splits and semis put up in the 1960s and 1970s, on wider lots, plus low-rise rental apartments. North of Kingston Road, the Clover Ridge and Delaney Drive East subdivisions were built through the late 1970s and 1980s: three- and four-bedroom two-storey houses and back-splits with single or double garages, brick fronts and siding above, on lots wider than anything built in the north of town since. The last phases toward Rossland Road East and around Applecroft went up at the end of the 1980s and through the 1990s and include the first double-garage plans and some larger houses on the crescents. Townhouse condominiums of 1970s and 1980s vintage line Harwood Avenue North, Kingston Road East and Salem Road, with a few freehold rows added later. Most houses have had one round of updates: roofs, windows and furnaces replaced, basements finished, and kitchens anywhere from original to fully redone.

Two of the four streets that cross Highway 401 in Ajax bound the community, so the platform at Westney Road South is a few minutes by car or bus: route 216 runs down Harwood Avenue to the station and north to Taunton Road, and route 224 does the same on Salem Road. PULSE 900 on Kingston Road East runs from downtown Oshawa through Pickering to U of T Scarborough, PULSE 916 on Rossland Road runs from Pickering Parkway Terminal to north Oshawa, and both stop within a short walk of most streets. Drivers reach the 401 at Harwood Avenue or Salem Road, both full interchanges, and Highway 407 by driving north on Salem or Westney. The 412 at Lake Ridge Road is a few minutes east. Cycling is on-road along Delaney Drive and the quieter crescents; the sidewalks along Kingston Road East and Harwood carry most of the walking to the plazas and the community's schools.

Public elementary schools in the area reportedly include Applecroft, Cadarackque and Roland Michener public schools, all Durham District School Board, and secondary students go to Ajax High School on Bayly Street East or to J. Clarke Richardson Collegiate north of Rossland Road, depending on the address. On the Catholic side, St. Patrick and St. Bernadette Catholic schools are nearby (Durham Catholic District School Board), with Archbishop Denis O'Connor Catholic High School on Mandrake Street inside the community and Notre Dame Catholic Secondary to the north. Public-board French immersion sits at designated schools that change as enrolment shifts, and French-language education comes from Viamonde and MonAvenir, whose Durham schools are in Pickering and Whitby. Because each board sets its own lines, verify the school for a particular house. Durham College's campus in Whitby is the next 401 exit, with its Oshawa campus and Ontario Tech University a short drive beyond.

Shopping is the community's strength: the Durham Centre stores along Kingston Road East, Costco, Walmart, Home Depot, the Cineplex and the restaurants between them, sit on the southern edge, and the plazas at Harwood and Rossland and at Salem and Kingston Road reportedly cover groceries, pharmacies and take-out. Ajax Downs, the racetrack and slots facility off Kingston Road East near Salem Road, marks the eastern end of the strip. Parks are neighbourhood-scale: the parks off Clover Ridge Drive East, the school fields along Delaney Drive East, the small parkettes on the crescents, and the Carruthers Creek valley trail east of Salem Road for a longer walk. South of the 401 are the arenas of the Ajax Community Centre on Centennial Road, the library's main branch beside the civic square at Harwood and Bayly, while the McLean Community Centre on Magill Drive has an indoor pool. For emergencies, Lakeridge Health Ajax Pickering sits below the highway on Harwood.

Central East suits families who want a three- or four-bedroom house on a real lot within five minutes of the 401, the GO and every big-box store in town, and who prefer a settled street with mature trees over a new subdivision. First buyers find the townhouse condominiums along Harwood and Kingston Road an easier entry than the freehold rows up north, and downsizers like the bungalows near Ritchie Avenue. Anyone set on a new build, a lakeside walk, a rural edge or a heritage main street should look elsewhere in town, and the streets nearest Kingston Road East and the 401 carry traffic noise that the interior crescents do not.