History
In 1908, the New York State Legislature created Route 3, an unsigned legislative route extending from the New Jersey state line in Rockland County to Albany by way of the Hudson River's west bank. The route mostly followed what is now U.S. Route 9W; however, from Highland Falls to Cornwall-on-Hudson, it used modern NY 218 instead. Much of legislative Route 3 became part of NY 10 when the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924 and part of US 9W when it was originally assigned in 1927.
In the early 1930s, plans were made by the state of New York to construct a new highway between the Bear Mountain Bridge and Cornwall-on-Hudson that would bypass both Cornwall-on-Hudson and Highland Falls and bypass the narrow Storm King Highway. On April 8, 1934, three people were killed by a rockslide on the Storm King Highway, expediting plans for the new highway, known as the Storm King Cut-off. It was constructed in stages from 1937 to 1941, with the final segment of the highway (from Angola Road north to Blooming Grove Turnpike north of Cornwall-on-Hudson) opening to traffic on May 31, 1941. US 9W was realigned to follow the cut-off while its old route via the Storm King Highway became NY 218.
During the forest fires on Storm King during the summer of 1999, NY 218 was closed for over a year, reopening in August 2000.
Read more about this topic: New York State Route 218
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