History
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. 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 $17.4 million in 2012). 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.
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. It was completed by 1956 and originally designated as part of NY 96. An extension northwest to the present site of the Can of Worms was opened to traffic by the following year. 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, while the segment between Winton Road and the Can of Worms was opened c. 1963.
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 2 miles (3.2 km) west of downtown. This section was completed by the following year. The remainder of the freeway west of Rochester was opened to traffic as far west as NY 36 near Churchville c. 1965 and finished by 1968. 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.
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. 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.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 490 (New York)
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