Ontario Highway 404
King's Highway 404, also known as Highway 404 and colloquially as the four-oh-four, is a north–south 400-series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. As the continuation of the municipal Don Valley Parkway north of Highway 401, it connects Toronto with East Gwillimbury. The controlled-access freeway also connects with Highway 407 in Markham and the Don Valley Parkway in North York and Toronto, which formed the northeastern ring road of the Greater Toronto Area until the opening of Highway 412 in 2016. Highway 404 provides access to the eastern edge of Richmond Hill, Aurora and Newmarket and the western edge of Whitchurch-Stouffville, in addition to the southern edge of Keswick.
Metro Toronto completed the Don Valley Parkway to Sheppard Avenue in 1966. Metro initially planned extension of the DVP to Steeles Avenue, northward the province would continue the route which was inaugurated as Highway 404. However, the province ending up decided that their new highway would also run south of Steeles, incorporating the existing segment of the Metro-built DVP between Sheppard and Highway 401. The first section south of Steeles opened in 1977, over what was formerly Woodbine Avenue. Over the next twelve years, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario undertook a continuous construction program to extend the highway to Davis Drive in Newmarket. This was completed on October 24, 1989. The route has undergone a periodic series of smaller extensions and widening in the years since, now travelling a further north to Woodbine Avenue near Ravenshoe Road in the town of East Gwillimbury. It has been proposed to further extend the freeway to southeast of Beaverton.
Highway 404 is one of several freeways in the Greater Toronto Area with High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes; the southbound lane was one of the initial projects in the province and opened on December 13, 2005. The northbound lane opened on July 23, 2007.
Route description
Running parallel to Highway 400 approximately to the east, Highway 404 extends on a north–south orientation between Highway 401 and Woodbine Avenue. There are 16 interchanges along its length, mostly of the Partial cloverleaf A4 configuration. Exit numbers on the freeway start at 17, suggesting that the length of the Don Valley Parkway was considered in distance calculations; until 2017, there were no exit numbers posted on the DVP.A continuation of the municipal-controlled DVP, the Ministry of Transportation of Ontario jurisdiction over the freeway begins as the opposing directions of travel diverge south of the Highway 401 interchange.
Northbound, two lanes from the DVP are joined by a third from the eastbound collectors of Highway 401. These narrow to two lanes before merging with a single lane from westbound Highway 401 immediately south of Sheppard Avenue. An additional two lanes from eastbound Highway 401 converge and form a separate carriageway with no access to Sheppard.
Southbound, the freeway is divided into two carriageways, both of which provide access to the DVP. The outer carriageway also provides access from Sheppard and to both directions of Highway 401, including the westbound express lanes, while the inner carriageway is intended for DVP-bound traffic. The HOV lane eventually merges with DVP-bound traffic, and also has an off-ramp via a tunnel to the Highway 401 westbound collector lanes.
To the east of Highway 404 is the Consumers Road office park. To the west and north of Sheppard Avenue is Fairview Mall, which has its own connection with the southbound lanes attached to the Sheppard interchange.
File:404 North.JPG|thumb|left|Highway 404 looking north just north of the Highway 401 / Don Valley Parkway interchange, showing the interchange with Sheppard Avenue, with Fairview Mall and Consumers Road office park on the west and east sides of the freeway, respectively.
The highway continues directly north along the old Woodbine Avenue right-of-way to just south of Steeles Avenue. This section of the freeway is five lanes per direction, plus an auxiliary lane that emerges from an on-ramp of one interchange and then diverges at an off-ramp of the next interchange. Southbound, the HOV lane continues to the interchange at Highway 401. From just north of the Van Horne Avenue overpass, the leftmost northbound lane becomes an HOV lane. Alongside Highway 404 to the east is an industrial warehouse and commercial office area, while on the west is a suburban subdivision of North York.
At the interchange with Steeles Avenue which also includes a dedicated on-ramp from Woodbine Avenue, the freeway enters the Regional Municipality of York where it diverges to the west before continuing north, running parallel to Woodbine Avenue. To the east are industrial units, while on the west are residential suburbs. This land-use persists north to the Highway 407 ETR junction, a multi-level combination interchange with two flyovers. At this point the freeway narrows and the central concrete barrier ends; a grass median taking its place between the opposing lanes. Immediately north of Highway 407, the freeway interchanges with Highway 7, and due to the close spacing of these two interchanges, the northbound off-ramp to Highway 7 is braided with the on-ramp from Highway 407 to avoid weaving. The freeway passes west of Buttonville Municipal Airport and then interchanges with 16th Avenue, and the proximity to the airport's runways necessitates that this freeway segment is illuminated by low poles, instead of the high mast lighting on the rest of the freeway.
The land-use density continues to drop, with the appearance of some open spaces and farms interspersed with industrial and commercial buildings. By 19th Avenue, just north of the Honda Canada headquarters in Markham, the land-use is agricultural on both sides of Highway 404. Highway 404 continues north, forming the eastern boundary of the municipalities of Richmond Hill, Aurora and Newmarket and the western boundary of Whitchurch-Stouffville. North of Wellington Street, the highway reduces in width to four lanes, which is its configuration north through East Gwillimbury. The route continues, passing east of the community of Queensville, where just a bit north, Highway 404 will meet the future Bradford Bypass, as it eventually curves northeast. The highway terminates at an at-grade intersection with Woodbine Avenue immediately south of Ravenshoe Road at the south end of Keswick.
The speed limit is on most of its length, with the exception of the stretch between Newmarket and the north end of the highway, where the speed limit is since it was raised on April 22, 2022.
History
Early studies
A freeway east of Highway 11 was planned as early as 1954, when the province extended Highway 48 south from Port Bolster. A large cloverleaf interchange was constructed with the Toronto Bypass, and plans formulated for a dual highway around the east side of Lake Simcoe, connecting with Highway11 near Orillia or Gravenhurst. This route was dropped when Metropolitan Toronto began planning for the northern extension of the DVP in 1957, as subdivisions encroached upon Woodbine Avenue north of Highway401. The six-lane expressway was to follow the alignment of Woodbine from its southern terminus at Lawrence Avenue to north of Steeles Avenue, where the Department of Highways would continue the road as a "new King's Highway".File:401-DVP interchange.png|thumb|right|alt=A bird's-eye view of a large highway interchange under construction. Several bridges are complete, but nothing is paved, aside from one highway crossing horizontally, which detours between the bridges.|The Highway 401 / Don Valley Parkway interchange under construction in 1965. The northern leg of the junction would eventually be designated as Highway 404.
In 1959, the DHO announced that they would construct and maintain the new route once the DVP was completed to Highway401 and designate it Highway404.
The proposed route of the freeway was presented at a special delegation on December13, 1960 by Harold Barry, a representative of the department. During this time Metro opened another section of the DVP from Lawrence Avenue to Highway 401 on November 17, 1966, followed by the section north of Highway 401 to Sheppard Avenue on March 1, 1967. As completed at that time, after passing Sheppard Avenue the parkway ended and transitioned to the two-lane Woodbine Avenue.
Construction begins
Design work on Highway404 started in 1973, and construction began following the awarding of a C$6.9million contract in March 1976. This contract included construction of the Finch Avenue interchange, overpasses at McNicoll and Van Horne Avenues and of six-lane freeway between Sheppard and Steeles Avenues.Shortly thereafter, on April20, Ernest Avenue and Van Horne Avenue were closed to traffic at Woodbine.
The existing Metro-built segment of the DVP between Sheppard and Highway401 was absorbed as part of the new provincial freeway.
Image:Highway 404 2023.jpg|225px|right|thumb|Originally built as part of the Don Valley Parkway, the segment south of Sheppard Avenue became part of Highway404 in 1977.
The first section of Highway404 between Highway401 and Steeles Avenue opened in late 1977, including the flyover ramp from southbound Woodbine Avenue.
The freeway was separated by a grass median with a steel box beam acting as a barrier between the lanes. Construction north of Toronto proceeded quickly, with the contract for the section from Steeles to Highway7 being awarded in 1976 and the section opening on November10, 1978.
The next extension, to Stouffville Road, was opened ceremoniously on December9, 1980 by minister James Snow;
the segment north of Highway7 was four lanes wide.
The section of Highway404 north of Stouffville Road was the subject of considerable controversy when work began to clear the route on May15, 1981, before the completion of an environmental impact assessment. The Ministry of Transportation and Communications was charged with violating the newly-enacted Environmental Assessment Act, which it contested came into effect after construction of the extension had begun.
Minister James Snow was charged with violating the act, and called upon to resign. He did not resign but paid a C$3,500 fine. Despite the issues surrounding it, the extension between Stouffville Road and Bloomington Road was opened ceremoniously on the morning of August10, 1982.
As originally built by Metro, the Sheppard Avenue interchange with the parkway was originally a Parclo AB2, and Fairview Mall Drive then ran only east-west directly north of the shopping centre and also had its own on/off-ramps from the southbound lanes of Highway 404. In the 1980s the province removed the separate sets of Fairview Mall Drive and Sheppard Avenue ramps in favour of an on/off-ramp that fed directly to the shopping centre and an extension of Fairview Mall Drive whose eastbound lanes run south to meet with Sheppard Avenue.
Construction on the segment north of Bloomington to Aurora Sideroad was already in progress by this point. It was opened to traffic in late September 1985. 16th Avenue, which had been widened from two to four lanes during the mid-1980s, received ramps connecting to the freeway south of that existing underpass.