Bradford Bypass (Highway 425) Tracker: Timeline & Updates

Last updated: September 14, 2026. I update this page whenever there is real news on the bypass. Bookmark it and check back.

The Bradford Bypass is finally being built. Crews broke ground in May 2026, and it now has an official name: Highway 425. The first section is targeted for 2030. The rest is still being designed, and nobody has set a date for the whole road yet.

This page puts everything in one place: what happened, what is happening now, what comes next, and what it could mean for homes in Bradford.

Status right now (September 2026)

West section (Highway 400 to County Road 4): under construction since May 2026. Target: 2030.
Central and east sections (County Road 4 to Highway 404): in detailed design since November 2025. No construction date yet.
County Road 4 bridge over the future highway: finished.
Whole highway open: no official date.

The Bradford Bypass at a glance

What it is	A new four-lane highway
Official name	Highway 425 (announced May 2026)
Where it starts	Highway 400 in Bradford West Gwillimbury, between 8th Line and 9th Line
Where it ends	Highway 404 in East Gwillimbury, between Queensville Sideroad and Holborn Road. It also crosses a small part of King Township.
Length	About 16 km. The province now says 16.3 km.
Planned interchanges	Highway 400, Sideroad 10, County Road 4 (Yonge Street), Bathurst Street, Leslie Street (partial), Highway 404. The central and east designs are not final, so those could still change.
Who pays	The Province of Ontario. No tolls.
Cost	No official total yet. See the cost section below.
Time saved	Up to 35 minutes compared with local roads, the province says

Where each part stands

The province split the job into pieces. Here is every piece and where it is today.

Part	What it covers	Stage	Who is doing it	Timing
County Road 4 bridge	Carries Yonge Street (County Road 4) over the future highway, and widens that stretch to four lanes	Finished	Brennan Paving & Construction with Morrison Hershfield ($30.3 million contract)	Started November 2022
Highway 400 connection	A new southbound lane on Highway 400 to link to the bypass, a rebuilt Highway 400 and County Road 88 interchange, and County Road 88 widened to four lanes	Under way	Dufferin Construction	Awarded August 2024
West section	Highway 400 to County Road 4, about 6.5 km. New interchanges at Sideroad 10 and County Road 4, a new freeway-to-freeway interchange at Highway 400, and a new Line 9 bridge over Highway 400	Under construction	The Miller Group	Started May 2026. Target: 2030
Central and east sections	County Road 4 east across the Holland River, through East Gwillimbury, to Highway 404	Detailed design	WSP Canada and Stantec (design). Jacobs and Egis manage the whole program.	Design awarded November 2025. No construction date.

The full timeline

This road has been talked about for close to 50 years. Here is how it got here.

The long wait (1970s to 2016)

Late 1970s: A highway link east of Highway 400 through this area is first proposed.
1986: The province cancels it, saying the harm to the environment outweighs the traffic benefit.
1993: A new environmental study starts on the route used today.
December 1997: The environmental assessment is submitted.
August 28, 2002: Ontario's environment minister approves it. At the time, the plan was to start building in 2006 and finish in 2010.
2003 to 2016: A new provincial government shelves the project. It stays on the shelf for more than a decade.

The comeback (2017 to 2021)

May 2017: The bypass is put back into the province's long-term growth plan.
August 2019: The province says planning will start again.
2020: Engineering, design and environmental studies begin.
May 2021: The federal government decides not to do its own environmental review. The transportation minister puts the cost at about $800 million.
October 2021: Ontario creates a special rule for this project, Ontario Regulation 697/21, which sets out its own environmental process and lets early work begin.
November 2021: Premier Doug Ford commits to fully fund it, with no tolls.

Shovels in the ground (2022 to 2025)

March 2022: Seven environmental groups take the federal government to court over its refusal to review the project.
April 2022: A $30.3 million contract is awarded to build the County Road 4 bridge over the future highway.
November 2022: Construction starts on that bridge. This is the first real construction on the bypass.
Late 2022: Ontario's Auditor General, using Ministry of Transportation figures, puts the cost at $2 billion to $4 billion.
December 2022: Ministry documents show a possible "ultimate" version with eight lanes by 2041. The ministry says it is still planned as a four-lane highway.
April 2023: The Federal Court rules that the federal minister's refusal to review the project was "unreasonable." That let the groups ask again. It did not halt the work.
2023: The transportation minister says it will cost more than the original $800 million. Infrastructure Ontario lists it at more than $1 billion for design and construction.
May 2024: The detailed design contract for the west section is awarded.
August 2024: Dufferin Construction wins the contract to connect Highway 400 to the bypass and rebuild the County Road 88 interchange.
November 2025: Design contracts for the central and east sections go to WSP and Stantec. Jacobs and Egis are hired to manage the whole program.

Major construction (2026)

Early 2026: The west section design is finished. Crews clear trees along the route and build a temporary detour at Sideroad 10.
April 2026: Ministry of Transportation officials tell Bradford West Gwillimbury council the west section is targeted to finish by 2030, if all goes well.
May 14, 2026: Major construction begins at Sideroad 10. The Miller Group is building the west section, and the bypass gets its official name: Highway 425.
2026 Ontario Budget: The province says the bypass will save up to 35 minutes, support up to 2,200 jobs a year during construction, and add up to $286 million to Ontario's economy.

When will the Bradford Bypass open?

The honest answer: the province has not said. Here is what is actually on record.

The west section is targeted for 2030. That is the only target the province has given.
The central and east sections are still being designed. Their finish date will not be known until the design is done.

My own estimate, and it is only an estimate: the west section took about two years to design (2024 to 2026) and is planned to take about four years to build. If the central and east sections move at a similar pace from their November 2025 start, their design wraps up around 2027 or 2028, and building takes several years after that. The central section also holds the two longest bridges on the route, over the Holland River, at roughly 400 and 600 metres. That points to the whole highway opening in the early-to-mid 2030s, not 2030.

The moment the province publishes a real date, it goes on this page.

What to watch for next

Public information sessions for the central and east sections
Construction contracts for the central and east sections, including the Holland River bridges
Progress on the west section: the Sideroad 10 and County Road 4 interchanges and the new Highway 400 interchange
An official total cost, or a finish date for the full highway
Any decision on widening it beyond four lanes
Any new request for a federal environmental review

How much will it cost?

There is still no official total, and the estimates have climbed over time.

When	Who	Estimate
2021	Ontario's transportation minister	About $800 million
Late 2022	Ontario's Auditor General, using ministry figures	$2 billion to $4 billion
2023	Infrastructure Ontario	More than $1 billion, for design and construction

The province is paying the full cost, and there will be no tolls.

The debate, in plain terms

Supporters say this area has needed a proper east-west highway for decades. Today, drivers crossing between Highway 400 and Highway 404 use local roads. The province says the bypass will cut that trip by up to 35 minutes and ease traffic on those roads.

Critics say it runs through part of the Greenbelt near the Holland Marsh, crosses the Holland River, and sits in the Lake Simcoe watershed. Environmental groups also argue that new highways fill up with new traffic and that the money would do more for transit. A December 2025 report by Environmental Defence and Transport Action Ontario called for it to be cancelled.

Ontario's Auditor General also weighed in. A 2022 audit found the Ministry of Transportation's own experts had rated the bypass a "medium" priority and would not have recommended it at that time, and that the minister's office directed the Ministry to move it forward.

Both things are true at once: the road is being built, and the concerns have not gone away. For a buyer, the practical lesson is simple. Plan around the timeline the province has actually published, not the one you hope for.

How the Bradford Bypass could help Bradford real estate

Here is what I can say with confidence, and what I would not assume.

Why it could help

Easier trips east. Bradford's weak spot has always been getting across to Highway 404, Newmarket and the rest of York Region. A direct highway fills the biggest gap in the local road map.
A bigger pool of buyers. When a town gets easier to reach, more people can consider living there. Over time, that supports demand.
More jobs close to home. Construction on the west section starts beside Bradford's Artesian Industrial Parkway, and the County of Simcoe has set aside a large employment area in Bradford West Gwillimbury. The County forecasts jobs in the town growing from about 11,800 to 30,900 by 2051.
A growing town. Bradford West Gwillimbury grew from 35,325 people in 2016 to 42,880 in 2021, and the County plans for about 83,470 by 2051.

What I would not assume

That it is holding prices up today. It is not. A typical Bradford home was $958,400 in August 2026, down 7.73% from a year earlier, one of the larger drops in the Toronto area. I broke down every area in where GTA home prices rose and fell this year.
That the benefit arrives soon. The first section is years away, and the full road later still.
That building it will be easy to live beside. Expect detours and construction around Sideroad 10, County Road 4, Line 9 and Highway 400 for years. Homes closest to the route will live with that the longest.
That a highway next door is always a plus. Being a few minutes from an interchange is handy. Backing onto a four-lane highway is a different thing. The 2002 approval required detailed noise reports before construction.

What kind of homes are being built near it

Almost everything new around the bypass is detached homes and townhouses. There are very few condos. Here are communities being built or planned near the route.

Community	Builder	Homes	Where	Advertised from
Bondhead	CountryWide Homes, plus other builders in the same community	Detached	Bond Head, west of Highway 400	About $2 million (CountryWide)
Bond Head South	Subdivision in progress	375 detached, 56 semi-detached, 171 townhouses, 102 apartments, 19 mixed-use	Southeast of County Roads 27 and 88	Not released
Green Valley East, Phase 4	Bayview Wellington Homes	Townhomes	Simcoe Road and Jonkman Boulevard, Bradford	Not released
Bradford Urban Towns	Cachet Homes	Townhomes	Dissette Street, Bradford	About $700,000
Simcoe Garden	Angil Development	Townhomes	Simcoe Road, Bradford	About $749,000
Summerlyn Village	Great Gulf	Detached	Bradford	About $1.3 million
Queensville	Aspen Ridge Homes, CountryWide Homes, Lakeview Homes	Townhomes and detached	Leslie Street and Queensville Sideroad, East Gwillimbury, near the bypass's planned Leslie Street ramps	Not released
Hillsborough	Andrin Homes	Detached	Highway 11, East Gwillimbury	About $1.4 million

Prices are builders' advertised starting prices on builder and new-home listing sites in September 2026. They change often and usually leave out upgrades and closing costs. Always get the current price list. Bond Head South figures are the proposed unit mix reported in June 2026, when Bradford West Gwillimbury council backed extending its draft plan approval and first-phase site work was under way.

If you are buying because of the bypass

Buying a new build? Many of these homes close in the same years the bypass is being built. Your mortgage is approved on the rules and rates at closing, not at signing, and the home has to appraise at closing. If prices dip between signing and closing, the gap comes out of your pocket. Here is how the appraisal gap works on pre-construction homes.
Buying resale near the route? Check exactly where the highway and interchanges will go. Five minutes from a ramp and backing onto the road are very different homes.
Looking at Bond Head or a rural lot? A well, a septic system or extra acreage changes which lenders will say yes. I covered that in rural mortgages around Bradford and Bond Head.
Buying your first home? The down payment and closing costs are the same whether the bypass is finished or not. Start with what it really costs to buy your first home in Bradford.
The stress test does not change. You still qualify at your rate plus two points, or 5.25%, whichever is higher.

Update log

September 14, 2026: Page created. The west section is under construction (since May 2026, target 2030). The central and east sections are in detailed design. There is no official date for the full highway.

Sources

Buying, renewing or refinancing near the bypass?

Whether it is a new build in Bond Head, a townhouse in Bradford or a home in Queensville, I will run your real numbers and tell you plainly what works. It costs nothing to ask.

Talk to a Bradford mortgage broker

Bradford Bypass (Highway 425): the full timeline, what's next, and what it means for homes