History
The right-of-way of the built portion of the LaSalle Expressway was once occupied by the International Railway Company's Buffalo–Niagara Falls High Speed Line, an interurban line that connected Buffalo with North Tonawanda and Niagara Falls. It was completed in 1918, but abandoned in 1937 as a result of low ridership. In the vicinity of Niagara Falls, the interurban ran adjacent to the former Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad line operated by the New York Central Railroad and the parallel Niagara Falls branch of the Erie Railroad. At some point between 1950 and 1965, both railroads constructed an easterly bypass of the city that left the original lines about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Williams Road. The old tracks leading directly into Niagara Falls were subsequently abandoned.
Plans to build a limited-access highway along the old railroad right-of-way date as far back as the early 1950s, when a proposed connector between the Niagara Thruway (now I-190) and the Rainbow Bridge was first marked on maps of the area. The proposed highway was eventually included in plans for the Belt Expressway, a freeway encircling the Buffalo suburbs from Blasdell in the south to downtown Niagara Falls in the north. The LaSalle Expressway portion of the highway would have extended from the Rainbow Bridge to US 62 in North Tonawanda. Construction of the segment between I-190 and Williams Road began in the mid-1960s and was completed by 1971.
Most of the Belt Expressway was never built. Only two parts of the road were constructed: the LaSalle Expressway and the Milestrip Expressway, part of NY 179, in Blasdell. The 0.42-mile (0.68 km) portion of Niagara Street in downtown Niagara Falls from the Rainbow Bridge to its junction with Fifth Street lies in the LaSalle's proposed right-of-way and is designated as part of NY 951A, the New York State Department of Transportation's unsigned reference route designation for the LaSalle Expressway. In 2007, all of the western portion of NY 951A east of Rainbow Boulevard became co-designated with the signed NY 384, which had been rerouted through the city. However, NY 951A's western segment still continues to Fifth Street as of 2008. In late 2011, an extension of the LaSalle Expressway past its western terminus at I-190 was mentioned by Niagara Falls Mayor Paul Dyster as a potential long-term solution to improve safety at the junction of I-190 and US 62.
The construction of the LaSalle Expressway indirectly contributed to the Love Canal disaster. When the freeway was built along the southern edge of the neighborhood in the 1960s, it prevented the contaminated groundwater inside the former canal from escaping into the Niagara River. The trapped toxic water was then brought to the surface after the water table rose substantially following a 1977 blizzard.
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