Until the 1990s, only Route 505 was considered the "Trans-Samaria Highway". Highway 5, which hadn't yet been upgraded to a highway, was a narrow, curved two-lane road that reached the Kassem junction and continued as a minimal two-lane road for 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) to the entrance to Kfar Kassem. At this point, the road (today's Highway 5) connected to the old Route 505, which crossed Kfar Kassem.
An early improvement was to extend and pave Route 5 along an additional 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) as a bypass road, which ended where the Sha'ar Shomron Interchange exists now. Eastward beyond that, the Trans-Samaria Highway was only Route 505. During the late 1990s and during the 2000s the National Roads Company of Israel continued to develop Route 5 as a two-lane highway in a new route south of Route 505 instead of upgrading the 505 route, so that the two highways were parallel for a distance of about 14 kilometres (8.7 mi). Since November 2008, route 5 has ended at the Ariel junction, where it connects with Route 505 which continues as the "Trans-Samaria Highway" to the intersection with the Highway 90 in the Petza'el intersection in the Jordan Valley.
In 2010 Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz ordered the planning for the route to connect the Gush Dan region with the Jordan Valley.[1]
