New York State Route 31E - History

History

In 1914, the New York State Legislature added two spur routes to Route 30, an unsigned legislative route extending from Niagara Falls in western Niagara County to Rouses Point in Clinton County via Medina. The first of these began at Route 30 (modern NY 63) and followed what is now NY 31E west to Middleport, from where it continued toward Lockport on current NY 31. On March 1, 1921, most of Route 30's Medina–Lockport spur route was supplanted by an extended Route 20. The lone exception was from Medina to Middleport, where Route 20 utilized modern NY 31 instead. When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, all of legislative Route 20 west of Rochester became part of NY 3.

NY 3 remained on what is now NY 31 between Middleport and Medina until the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York when it was realigned between the two villages to use what is now NY 31E. U.S. Route 104 was assigned to all of Ridge Road c. 1935, replacing then-NY 31 west of Rochester. As a result, NY 31 was shifted southward onto most of NY 3 from Niagara Falls to Rochester, including between Middleport and Medina. NY 31 was realigned on January 1, 1949, to follow its current alignment between the two villages. The former routing of NY 31 was redesignated as NY 31E, a northerly alternate route of NY 31.

The alignment of NY 31E has not changed since that time; however, ownership of parts of the route has changed hands over the years. Until 1998, NY 31E was state-maintained from its western terminus in Middleport to the Medina village line. On October 1, 1998, ownership and maintenance of NY 31E between NY 271 in Middleport and the Niagara–Orleans county line was transferred from the state to Niagara County as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government. This section of the route was subsequently co-designated, but not signed, as CR 143 by Niagara County.