Автомагистраль 404 в Онтарио: История и Развитие

Controlled access highway in Ontario

King's Highway 404 (pronounced "four oh four"), also known as Highway 404 and colloquially as the 404, is a 400 series highway in the Canadian province of Ontario. A continuation of the municipal Don Valley Parkway (DVP) north of Highway 401, it connects Toronto with East Gwillimbury. The controlled access freeway also connects with Highway 407 in Markham, 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 (Metro) completed the Don Valley Parkway (DVP) 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 (MTO) 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. Future proposals may one day result in an extension to southeast of Beaverton. Highway 404 is one of several freeways in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) with High Occupancy Vehicle (HOV) 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.

Studies and environmental assessments into various extensions began almost immediately after the completion of the route to Newmarket in 1989; it would take over a decade for any northward progression to take place. The completion of the route to Davis Drive was met with scorn as traffic in Newmarket rapidly increased as the bedroom community grew with the new highway access. Municipal officials warned prior to the opening of the route that major traffic delays would be faced along Davis Drive. Then mayor Ray Twinney began an immediate push to widen Green Lane – at that time an unpaved rural route – into a bypass of the town. Traffic delays were also compounded at the southern end of Toronto, where drivers whom had previously made use of Yonge Street, Bayview Avenue or Leslie Street would shift to make use of the new freeway. The province studied this and other options over the following years, before a formal announcement was made by Minister of Transportation Tony Clement on June 22, 1998, along with York Region chairman Bill Fisch. The plan called for an extension of Highway 404 north to Green Lane, and widening of Highway 9, the western extension of Davis Drive (now part of it after being downloaded and redesignated as York Regional Road 31 east of Highway 400) outside town, to five lanes between Highway 400 and Bathurst Street. At the time over 20,000 vehicles used Davis Drive on an average day. In the interim period, work went into expanding the six lane freeway through Toronto and Markham. A combination interchange was built with the new Highway 407 ETR which opened in June 1997, which as a prerequisite required the realignment of some ramps from the nearby Highway 7 interchange. In early 1998, the MTO announced plans for two contracts to widen Highway 404 south of Highway 7. The first contract converted the grass median into an additional lane in each direction with a central concrete barrier between them, with the inner lanes to eventually be converted into HOV lanes. High mast lighting was installed in the median barrier, replacing the unique luminaires that were mounted outside of the right shoulder of each carriageway. With the shift in road illumination completed as a prerequisite, the second contract would result in an additional lane in each direction on the outside the existing freeway south of Highway 407, making it ten lanes wide, with expansion of the southbound and northbound lanes completed in 2005 and 2007, respectively. In conjunction with the widening to add HOV lanes, improvements were made to the bottlenecked interchange with Highway 401. This involved the construction of a two lane on ramp receiving traffic from the eastbound Highway 401 express and collectors that would converge with Highway 404 northbound without access to Sheppard Avenue, while the existing single lane on ramp for that same movement was retained for Highway 401 collector traffic to exit at Sheppard Avenue. Ramps were added to connect Regional Road 73 (16th Avenue) with the segment of Highway 404 north of that junction, making it a full interchange. On June 19, 2003, Transportation Minister and Oak Ridges MPP Frank Klees opened the new ramps, with Thornhill MPP Tina Molinari also in attendance, with traffic permitted onto the ramp following the ceremony. The MTO formally announced plans to alleviate traffic in Newmarket on August 28, 2000: a three contract project to widen and extend Highway 404. The first contract added an additional lane in each direction in the grass median from Major Mackenzie Drive to Bloomington Road. A second contract then extended those two lanes north to Aurora Sideroad. These two projects both began in the summer of 2001 and were completed in December. The third contract (see below) was an extension from Davis Drive to Green Lane. This contract began shortly after the announcement in September 2000. The extension was opened to traffic on February 8, 2002, at a ceremony attended by York North MPP Julia Munro and York Region chairman Bill Fisch. On May 16, 2006, the MTO announced plans to extend Highway 404 by from Green Lane to Ravenshoe Road at the south end of Keswick. The first contracts were awarded later that year for the construction of the northbound bridge over Green Lane,
followed by two structures over Mount Albert Road, west of Woodbine Avenue, begun in late 2008 and completed in 2009. By April 2011, the extension had been cleared and graded. Completion was originally scheduled for December 15, 2012 with landscaping work to continue the following spring. However, due to soil conditions and utility relocation issues, the project was delayed by nearly two years. The C$99 million extension opened on September 17, 2014.

On December 9, 2016, the MTO announced that the segment between Highway 407 and Stouffville Road would be widened from six to eight lanes with the additional inner lanes to be used as HOV lanes. Much of the work involved paving over the remainder of the grass median and erecting a concrete barrier. A complex part of this project involved the staged replacement of the existing 16th Avenue and Rouge River bridges that have been in service when the freeway opened; the old 16th Avenue underpasses had been widened twice (in 1988 for new ramps, and in 2002 for the freeway expansion) but still only permitted four lanes of an increasingly congested 16th to pass through, while the old Rouge River bridges were originally designed with two freeway lanes each and for the 2002 expansion they were restriped for three lanes by removing the shoulders. A carpool lot was added at Major Mackenzie Drive at the start of the project. Construction north of Major Mackenzie Drive started in 2017 and was completed in 2021, while construction south of Major Mackenzie started in 2019 and is scheduled to be completed in June 2024.

Long term proposals by the province call for Highway 404 to be extended to Highway 12, between Sunderland and Beaverton. This extension would follow a new alignment to Port Bolster, east of which the freeway would incorporate the existing two lanes of Highway 48. It has drawn criticism from various environmental groups who claim it will only serve to accelerate urban sprawl north of Toronto.