Highway 404 (Ontario)

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Highway 404
Length:	36 km (22.5 miles)
Direction:	North/South
From:	Toronto, Ontario
To:	Newmarket, Ontario
Major cities:	Toronto, Markham

The King's Highway 404 or simply Highway 404 is an Ontario 400-Series Highway that runs from the junction of Highway 401 and the Don Valley Parkway in Toronto to its northern terminus at Green Lane/Herald Road in Newmarket. The highway mainly serves as a commuter road for those working in Toronto but living in the northern suburbs of the city. As it forms Toronto's only complete north-south freeway besides Highway 427, Highway 404 is among the busiest freeways for its size.

Originally an extension of the Don Valley Parkway and incorporating the routing of Woodbine Avenue, Highway 404 became a provincial highway (and was completed by the Ontario Ministry of Transportation) in 1977. The outdated interchange with Highway 401, built in the late 1960s along with the Highway 401 expansion project, remains a major bottleneck especially for southbound traffic. Initially, Highway 404 was completed from 401 to Steeles Avenue with 6 lanes. At the time, it had features atypical of 1970s provincial urban freeways, notably its grass median with a steel box-beam barrier and its conventional shaded high-pressure sodium lighting system, rather than the more common metal guardrail and mercury truss lights. North of Steeles, Highway 404 became a 4-lane rural freeway.

In the late 1990s, Highway 404 underwent a major reconstruction with the earliest projects centring around the new Highway 407. Subsequently, the grass median and conventional lighting system was replaced with a tall-wall concrete barrier, high-mast lighting, and 2 additional lanes per direction from Highway 401 to Highway 407. North of Highway 407, Highway 404 was widened to 6 lanes all the way to Aurora Road, and the lighting system had been extended all the way to Major Mackenzie Drive. Ramps serving 404 northbound were added to the exisiting partial interchange with 16th Avenue in 2002, and in 2003-2004, a new interchange was constructed with Elgin Mills Road.

Running parallel to Highway 400 approximately 15 kilometres to the west, the 404 extends 36 km (22 mi.) north-south. The MTO plans to further extend the 404 northerly (and then easterly) to Highway 12 (Beaverton area), to better serve commuters and to provide an alternate highway link into Ontario's "cottage country". On May 16, 2006 the MTO announced plans to extend the highway 15km further north from Green Lane to Ravenshoe Rd. (south end of Keswick), construction is expected to commence sometime in 2007 with completion slated for 2011.

Highway 404 has 14 interchanges along its entire length, mostly of the Parclo A4 type. The fact that the exit numbers start at 17 suggest that the Don Valley Parkway was included in distance calculations when signing the exits, although there are no exit numbers posted on the Don Valley Parkway.

[edit] Volume Information (2005)

• Highest Volume: 250,800 AADT from Highway 401 (Exit 17) to Sheppard Avenue (Exit 18)
• Lowest Volume: 32,200 AADT from Vivian Road/Mulock Road (Exit 49) to Davis Drive (Exit 51)

[edit] Lane Configurations from South to North

[edit] Interchanges from South to North

Municipality	Exit Number	Intersecting Roads
Toronto	17	Highway 401 and Don Valley Parkway
Toronto	18	Sheppard Avenue
Toronto	20	Finch Avenue
Toronto - Markham Boundary	22	(Northbound) Steeles Avenue / Woodbine Avenue (York Road 8)/(Southbound) Steeles Ave
Markham	25	Highway 407
Markham - Richmond Hill Boundary	27	Highway 7 (York Road 7)
Markham - Richmond Hill Boundary	29	16th Avenue (York Road 73)
Markham - Richmond Hill Boundary	31	Major Mackenzie Road (York Road 25)
Markham - Richmond Hill Boundary	33	Elgin Mills Road (York Road 49)
Richmond Hill - Whitchurch-Stouffville Boundary	37	Stouffville Road (York Road 14)
Richmond Hill - Whitchurch-Stouffville - Aurora Boundary	41	Bloomington Road (York Road 40)
Whitchurch-Stouffville - Aurora Boundary	45	Aurora Road (York Road 15)
Whitchurch-Stouffville - Newmarket Boundary	49	Vivian Road / Mulock Road (York Road 74) (northbound only)
Whitchurch-Stouffville - Newmarket - East Gwillimbury Boundary	51	Davis Drive (York Road 31)
East Gwillimbury	53	Green Lane (York Road 19)

[edit] Future Interchanges from South to North (exit numbers assumed)

[edit] HOV Lanes

Showing an Ariel Shot of The Continues Construction Of The HOV lanes (*Note: Look At the Current alignment of the Highway 404 S - Highway 401 W collectors. Today that alignment is used for the HOV lanes. they also made a new ramp with The general traffic lane Ramp from the highway 404 - Highway 401 West collectors) the HOV Ramp From Highway 404 - Highway 401 Wesr Collectors in situated in a tunnel

Present view of 404 with the HOV lanes were open to the public

HOV lanes similar to those on Highway 403 in Peel Region are being added to the 404, stretching from 407 ETR southwards to the Highway 401.

The first projects commenced in the late 1990s and involved the construction of the Highway 407 interchange and the widening of the Highway 7 junction to incorporate the HOV lanes, although the extra pavement was blocked off and remained unused for over five years.

The next stage of HOV construction was the widening of the freeway from Highway 401 to just north of Steeles Avenue using the median, in 1999-2001, along with improved ramps from 401 eastbound to 404 northbound. The new left lanes served general purpose traffic for the interim, while stretch of Highway 404 from Sheppard to Steeles was widened using the right shoulder to provide additional lanes for general purpose traffic. Once this was completed, the innermost lanes were converted to HOV lanes.

Construction for the southbound HOV lane begun in early 2004, including an underpass tunnel to 401 west, and was opened in November 2005. Shortly afterwards, work on the northbound HOV lane was initiated. There will likely be extensions to the HOV lanes north of Highway 7.

Since traffic congestion is warranting the addition of HOV lanes, people often compare the name of this highway to the 404 errors that occur on the internet when traffic abruptly halts at a dead-end ^[1].

[edit] References

• Cameron Bevers, The History of Ontario's Kings Highways at http://www.thekingshighway.ca/
• Scott Steeves, www.ONTHIGHWAYS.com at http://www.onthighways.com/

• Official extension plans - government notice, published in March 22, 2005 edition of The Globe and Mail
• Ontario earmarks $3.4 billion of highway at http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1150451529273&call_pageid=968256289824&col=968342212737

	400-series highways of Ontario
400 | 401 | 402 | 403 | 404 | 405 | 406 | 407 ETR | 409 | 410 | 416 | 417 | 420 | 427 | QEW
Proposed: 424
Ontario Provincial Highways | List of Ontario expressways