Interstate 490 (New York)
Interstate 490 (I-490) is an auxiliary Interstate Highway that serves the city of Rochester, New York, in the United States. It acts as a northerly alternate route to the New York State Thruway (I-90), leaving it at exit 47 in the town of Le Roy and rejoining the highway at exit 45 in the town of Victor 37.4 miles (60.2 km) to the east. I-490 connects with I-390 and New York State Route 390 (NY 390) on the western side of Rochester and I-590 and NY 590 on the east side of the city at an interchange known as the Can of Worms. The highway comprises the southernmost portion of the Inner Loop, a beltway around the interior of Rochester. Outside the city, I-490 serves several suburban villages, such as Churchville and Pittsford.
"Eastern Expressway" redirects here. For the highway in Mumbai, see Eastern Express Highway..svg)
The eastern half of the freeway, named the Eastern Expressway, was built in stages from the 1950s to the 1970s as a connector between the Inner Loop and the thruway, and the section west of the Inner Loop and Downtown Rochester to I-90 in Le Roy is known as the Western Expressway. From Downtown Rochester to the Can of Worms, it follows the former right-of-way of the Rochester subway and, before it, the Erie Canal. The section west of the Inner Loop was mostly built during the 1960s and completed in the early 1970s. During the 1950s and early 1960s, the portion of the Eastern Expressway from what is now the Can of Worms east to Bushnell's Basin was originally designated as part of NY 96. That route was moved back onto its parallel surface routing c. 1961 when I-490 was assigned to the entirety of the then-proposed Le Roy–Victor freeway.
History[edit]
The portion of I-490 from exit 15 southeast to the Can of Worms follows the original path of the Erie Canal through the city of Rochester.[8] After the canal was rerouted to bypass Rochester in 1920, the former canal bed was purchased by the city for roughly $1.5 million (equivalent to $17.3 million in 2023[11]).[9] Plans drawn up by the city in the early 1910s called for a highway to be built in the old canal bed; however, subsequent proposals leaned toward repurposing the bed as a rapid transit system instead. The Rochester subway, as it became known, began operation in 1927. As ridership on the line declined in the 1940s and early 1950s, the city elected to shut the subway down in 1956 and use the right-of-way for a new highway connecting the Inner Loop to the recently completed New York State Thruway south of Rochester.[9]
Construction of the Eastern Expressway, a limited-access highway connecting the Inner Loop to the thruway in Victor, began in the early 1950s with the first section extending from NY 96 in Bushnell's Basin to NY 31F near East Rochester.[12][13] It was completed by 1956 and originally designated as part of NY 96.[14] An extension northwest to the present site of the Can of Worms was opened to traffic by the following year.[15] The expressway remained part of NY 96 until c. 1961 when it was designated as part of I-490, a proposed route extending westward through Downtown Rochester and southwestward through the western suburbs to Thruway exit 47 in Le Roy. The portion of the highway between the Inner Loop and Winton Road was completed in the old subway cut by this time,[3][4] while the segment between Winton Road and the Can of Worms was opened c. 1963.[16][17]
Work on the portion of I-490 west of the Inner Loop began c. 1962 and initially extended from NY 259 in Chili to Mount Read Boulevard two miles (3.2 km) west of downtown.[4][16] This section was completed by the following year.[17] The remainder of the freeway west of Rochester was opened to traffic as far west as NY 36 near Churchville c. 1965[18][19] and finished by 1968.[20] The last two gaps in the freeway—from Mount Read Boulevard east to the Inner Loop in Rochester and from Bushnell's Basin southeast to the thruway in Pittsford and Victor—were filled in the early 1970s.[5][6]
I-490 formerly had two sets of rest areas, one in Victor and one in Churchville. The Churchville pair, located east of exit 3, were closed on July 18, 1990, after numerous complaints about sexual activity in the area.[21] The ones in Victor, west of the thruway interchange, were closed on November 1, 1990, for the winter as a temporary cost-saving measure.[22] The New York State Department of Transportation decided in June 1991 to make these closures permanent to save on costs.[23]
The planned construction of the Inner Loop (now part of I-490) through the Corn Hill district of Downtown Rochester just west of the Genesee River was the driving factor that led the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) to relocate to its present location in Henrietta in 1968. The plan called for the demolition of a number of RIT buildings and would have resulted in splitting the campus into two halves separated by the new freeway.[24][25] The portion of I-490 from exit 9 (I-390 and NY 390) in Gates to exit 27 (NY 96) in Perinton was ceremoniously designated as the "Erie Canal Expressway" by the New York State Legislature on August 16, 2005.[26]
