of the new freeway. By 1992, York Region was moving forward with plans to expand Green Lane into a four lane road, while the province was urged to consider extending Highway 404 north to it, and eventually around the east side of Lake Simcoe. 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 also installed, replacing the unique luminaires used on the freeway. 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 2002, Highway 404 was widened to six lanes between Highway 7 and Wellington Road, using the right-of-way afforded by the grass median. 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. Starting in the late 1990s, improvements were made to the bottlenecked interchange with Highway 401. This involved the construction of a two-lane on-ramp