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Route 178 offers a little variety in nearly seven miles of suburbia: a forested straightaway at its western end, some residential neighborhoods, and a commercial strip in Bloomfield. It follows, by coincidence, two different Park Avenues, not related to each other, in its two towns.
In the 1920s, state highway 178 followed today's Route 71 from New Britain to Meriden.
The modern Route 178 was not part of the original 1932 set of state highways; the eastern half was not on the highway system in any form.
West Street, Mountain Avenue, Park Avenue, and Blue Hills Avenue in Simsbury and Bloomfield were State Highway 311 from the 1920s to 1931.
On Jan, 1, 1932, SH 311 was designated Route 184. School Street in Bloomfield, and the rest of today's Route 178 leading into Windsor, remained town roads.
In 1933, the state added School Street and Wintonbury Avenue to the Windsor town line as unsigned SR 919.
In 1935, Route 178 was born, incorporating SR 919. Its original alignment, west to east, was the eastern portion of today's Route 178:
In 1963, Route 184 was deleted, and Route 178 was extended along former Route 184 (Park Avenue, Mountain Avenue and West Street), as described above, to end at Route 185.
In 1964, the state unveiled a plan to relocate and straighten the western end of Route 178. About 5,000 feet of new and realigned road along Loeffler Rd. would provide a safer, more direct route. This work was done around 1966. The remainder of Mountain Avenue and West Street were turned over to the town.