Planning and initial construction Although the construction of Highway 407 did not begin until 1987, planning for the bypass of Highway 401 north of Toronto began in the late 1950s. Concepts for the new "dual highway" first appeared in the 1959 plan for Metropolitan Toronto. This arrangement allowed for the construction to be accelerated, creating jobs during the recession. The PPP contracting also enabled design modifications that reduced construction costs while maintaining safety standards. Retrofitting toll booths into already designed and constructed interchanges threatened the viability of the plan. The innovative use of automated cameras to read license plates overcame this challenge, and along with transponders for regular users avoided driver delays and provided increased convenience. This resulted in the 407 becoming "the world's first all-electronic, barrier-free toll highway". Financing for the highway was to be paid by user tolls lasting 35 years, after which it would return to the provincial system as a toll-free 400-series highway. The Rae government announced on March 31, 1995, that the corridor reserved for
Highway 403 between Burlington and Oakville would instead be built as a western extension of Highway 407. The first segment of Highway 407, between
Highway 410 and
Highway 404, was ceremonially opened to traffic on June 7, 1997; no tolls were charged for a month to allow motorists to test-drive the freeway. That section was connected with Highway 403 to the south on September 4, 1998, In the east, an extension to Markham Road, at what was then the southern terminus of
Highway 48, was completed in early 1998. However, due to the protest of local residents and officials concerning traffic spill-off (a scenario revisited with the extension to Oshawa), the freeway was opened only as far as McCowan Road on February 18. The short segment from McCowan Road to Markham Road remained closed for over a year, as locals feared the funneling of traffic onto Main Street, which is named "Markham Road" south of the freeway. Both Markham and McCowan Roads were widened to four lanes between Highway 407 and Steeles Avenue at this time. This did not alleviate concerns, but on June 24, 1999, the extension opened to continue protest regardless. In 2000, the 407 consortium had planned to extend the four lane highway by eastward from Markham to Brock Road in Pickering by the end of the following year. The segment of Highway 407 from Markham to Brock Road in Pickering opened on August 24, 2001.
Privatization and original extensions }} When
Mike Harris was elected Premier in 1995 on his platform of the
Common Sense Revolution, the Ontario government faced an $11 billion annual deficit and a $100 billion debt. Seeking to balance the books, a number of publicly owned services were privatized over the following years. Although initially spared, Highway 407 was privatized quickly in the year leading up to the 1999 provincial elections. It was leased to a conglomerate of private companies for $3.1 billion. The Ontario-based corporation, known as
407 International Inc., was initially owned by the
Spanish multinational
Ferrovial through its subsidiary
Cintra Infraestructuras (61.3%), the Montreal-based engineering firm
SNC-Lavalin (22.6%), and
CDP Capital (16.1%). The 99-year lease agreement granted the consortium unlimited control over the highway and its tolls, dependent on traffic volume; however, the government maintains the right to build a transport system within the highway right-of-way. When purchased, the highway travelled from the junction of Highway 403 in Mississauga to Markham Road in Markham. Extensions westward to
the QEW and eastward to Highway 7 and Brock Road in Pickering were constructed by the corporation, as mandated in the lease agreement. The western extension, from Highway 403 southwest to the QEW, was not part of the original Highway 407 concept in 1987; rather, the corridor was originally intended to connect the Hamilton and Mississauga sections of Highway 403. Highway 407 was originally slated to assume the temporary routing for Highway 403 along the Mississauga-Oakville boundary to end at the QEW. However, the Bob Rae led Ontario government altered these plans in 1995, Phase 2A, which opened on January 2, 2018, added a extension to Taunton Road at the future Highway 418 interchange. and the EA was completed in June 2009. On March 6, 2007, as part of the FLOW initiative, the Government of Canada and the Province of Ontario confirmed the extension of the 407 to Highway 35 and Highway 115 in the Municipality of Clarington, including the connector highways, with an announced completion date of 2013. On January 27, 2009, the provincial government announced that the extension would be a tolled highway but owned by the province and with tolls set by the province. The announcement also indicated that the province expected to issue a Request for Proposals later in the year. The contract, which is valued at $1.6 billion and includes construction and operation of the highway, was eventually awarded to the same consortium that owns 407 ETR. On June 9, 2010, the MTO approved the extension as far east as Simcoe Street in Oshawa, announcing plans to phase construction of the extension. Local residents and politicians rejected the plan, as had happened with the section between McCowan Road and Markham Road. This timeline was confirmed by Premier
Dalton McGuinty on May 24, 2012, and construction began in the first quarter of 2013. In early December 2015, it was announced that contractor delays would push the opening of the first phase from December 18 to the spring of 2016. The extension did not open until the morning of June 20, 2016, in the last hours of Spring 2016.
Since completion Between 2018 and 2019, Highway 407 was widened between Markham Road and Brock Road. The first project, widening the highway to 6 lanes between York-Durham Line and Brock Road, began in Spring 2018 and was completed in August 2018. The second project, which widened the highway to 8 lanes between Markham Road and York-Durham Line, was completed in September 2019. In the
Progressive Conservative Party of Ontario's 2025 re-election campaign, Premier
Doug Ford stated that a re-elected Progressive Conservative government would remove tolls from the provincially-owned portion of the highway. Tolls were subsequently removed on June 1, 2025, as part of the spring budget. There are currently plans for multiple new interchanges, as well as reconstruction of the ramps with route 401 to serve route 413. The government of Ontario is also considering widening of the toll-free section, Hwy. 407 East. == Controversies ==