the importance of Highway2 for long-distance travel was all but eliminated, and coupled with the increasing suburbanization of the Greater Toronto Area, it became an urban commuter route between Hamilton and Oshawa. Having being replaced in importance by the parallel freeways of Highway401, the Queen Elizabeth Way, and finally Highway403, the province gradually transferred sections of the route back to the municipal, county and regional governments that it passed through, a process known as downloading. In 1997 and 1998, the province downloaded of Highway2 and rescinded dozens of Connecting Link agreements, reducing the route to its current length. Route description Since 1998, Highway2 has remained in the provincial highway system solely as a connection between westbound Thousand Islands Parkway and eastbound Highway401. Highway2 begins at the eastern town limits of Gananoque, and travels east a short distance before gently curving northward. It meets an interchange with the Thousand Islands Parkway—once referred to as Highway2S, prior to becoming a temporary part of Highway401 in 1952—and ends at the westbound Highway401 offramp (Exit648). The roadway continues as Leeds and Grenville County Road 2 both east and west of the highway. Before 1997 Before being mostly-decommissioned as a provincial highway in the mid-1990s, Highway2 was a continuous route from Highway 3 in Windsor to the Quebec border. Prior to the arrival of Highway401 in the 1950s and early 1960s, Highway2 was the primary east–west route across the southern portion of Ontario. At one time it connected with Quebec Route 2, which was renumbered in 1966 as multiple highways, and onwards to New Brunswick Route 2 and Nova Scotia Trunk 2 to end in Halifax. New Brunswick reassigned Route2 to a new freeway running between Fredericton and Moncton in 2007, while Nova Scotia kept its portion of Highway2 intact, numbering its bypass as Highway 102 and Highway 104. In 1972, the Ontario and Quebec governments designated Highway/Route2 from Windsor to Rivière-du-Loup as the Heritage Highway (Route des Pionniers), a tourist route which continued eastward to the Gaspé Peninsula on what is now Quebec Route 132. This tourist route included various side trips, such as highways to Ottawa and Niagara Falls. While this signage is maintained in some counties, others have promoted local tours, including the Apple Route between Trenton and Brighton, the Arts Route in Hastings County, and the Chemin du Roy (The King's Way, now Route 138) between Montreal and Quebec City. Windsor–Mississauga