New York State Route 31 - History - Rochester

Rochester

The portion of NY 31 in downtown Rochester between Brown Street and South Avenue runs along the old path of the Erie Canal through the city. When the canal was diverted to bypass the city to the south in 1920, the canal bed became part of the Rochester Subway while a 4,000-foot (1,219 m) bridge was built over the bed to carry a new street named Broad Street. None of Broad Street was initially part of NY 31, however; when NY 31 replaced NY 3 west of Rochester c. 1935, it entered the city by way of NY 3's old routing on Lyell Avenue and rejoined its original alignment at State Street. In the late 1930s, NY 31 was realigned through downtown to follow Smith and Bausch Streets east across the Genesee River and St. Paul Street and South Avenue south to Woodbury Boulevard, which at the time connected to Monroe Avenue one block to the east at South Clinton Avenue. NY 31 was altered once again c. 1964 to leave Lyell Avenue at Broad Street and follow West and East Broad Streets through downtown to South Avenue.

From West Main Street to South Avenue, the bridge supports were largely built with concrete while the supports on the section between Brown Street and West Main Street were mostly built with steel. Unlike the concrete supports, the steel supports flexed throughout the year, creating holes and gaps in the pavement on the deck above. The city of Rochester, which owns and maintains the section of NY 31 within the city, closed the outer northbound lane of West Broad Street (westbound NY 31) between Brown and Main Streets in June 2008 for this reason.

In February 2010, work began on a $17.5 million project to either demolish or rehabilitate the Broad Street bridge between Brown Street and Exchange Boulevard (NY 383). As part of the project, the section of the bridge between Brown and West Main Streets would be removed—allowing for the canal bed to be filled in and the road to be rebuilt—while the segment between West Main Street and Exchange Boulevard would be rehabilitated. The portion of Broad Street between Allen and Main Streets was closed to all traffic in February and was originally scheduled to open on October 30. It finally reopened to traffic on December 3.

Farther north, work on the segment between Brown and Allen Streets was performed on one side at a time, keeping one side of Broad Street open at all times. The northbound lanes of this segment were closed on April 7, and one direction of the segment was closed until November. It fully reopened on December 3 along with the West Main Street–Allen Street segment. Rehabilitation of Broad Street from West Main Street to Exchange Boulevard was expected to be completed in mid-to-late 2011. The entire project, which also calls for landscape improvements to the area surrounding West Broad Street, was tentatively scheduled to be finished in February 2012.