Ontario Highway 400 - Route Description

Route Description

While Highway 400 was originally known as the Toronto–Barrie Highway, the route has been extended well beyond Barrie to north of Parry Sound, and is projected to reach its eventual terminus in Sudbury by 2017. As of 2009, the length of the highway is 209.0 km (129.9 mi) with an additional 152 km (94 mi) planned.

Highway 400 begins at the Maple Leaf Drive overpass in Toronto, south of Highway 401. South of that, it is known as Black Creek Drive, a high speed commuter road once planned as a southern extension of the 400. Highway 400 had been completed to Jane Street in 1966 (alongside the expansion of Highway 401) but plans to extend Highway 400 further south to the Gardiner Expressway were cancelled after several citizens groups protested the proposal in the 1970s. Black Creek Drive was built along the empty right-of-way and transferred to Metro Toronto in 1982.

North of Maple Leaf Drive, the highway shifts northwestward, but then turns approximately northward at Highway 401. At the interchange with the 401, Highway 400 widens to twelve lanes. It continues north through Toronto, shedding two lanes at Finch Avenue. The congested section between Highway 407 and Langstaff Road in suburban Vaughan features a short collector-express system. The 400/407 junction is the only four-level stack interchange in Canada.

From Highway 401 to the Holland Marsh the freeway largely parallels the arterial / concession roads Weston Road and Jane Street, passing over the height of land at the Oak Ridges Moraine. The highway passes through protected rural areas in northern York Region and encounters rolling countryside in Simcoe County south of Barrie. The section near Barrie is subject to snowsqualls as it lies near the edge of Georgian Bay's snowbelt.

Within Barrie, Highway 400 passes through a trench which places it below grade for most of its length, the route curving around downtown Barrie towards the north-east. On the outskirts of Barrie, the through right-of-way continues as Highway 11 towards Orillia and North Bay, while Highway 400 exits and veers 90 degrees to the north-west towards Georgian Bay, travelling alongside the former Highway 93 to Craighurst. At Craighurst the highway again turns north-east, skirting the Copeland Forest and the ski hills of the Oro Moraine, to meet Highway 12 in Coldwater. From here, the highway takes on the Trans-Canada Highway designation, and follows a predominantly north-western heading along what was the route of Highway 69, toward the planned terminus of Sudbury. In Muskoka and Parry Sound districts, Highway 400 is in most sections a twinned four-lane highway, but several bypasses have and are being built to circumvent the communities along the way. At Port Severn, the highway meets the rugged Canadian Shield, and winds its way north through the granite, often flanked by towering slabs of rock.