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New York State Route 33

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New York State Route 33

New York State Route 33 (NY 33) is an east–west state highway in western New York in the United States. The route extends for just under 70 miles (113 km) from NY 5 in Buffalo in the west to NY 31 in Rochester in the east. It is the only state highway that directly connects both cities, although it is rarely used today for that purpose. The westernmost 10 miles (16 km) of NY 33 in Buffalo and the neighboring town of Cheektowaga have been upgraded into the Kensington Expressway. This section of NY 33 is one of several freeways leading out of downtown and serves as a main route to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

On the Rochester end, NY 33 primarily serves as a paralleling local route to Interstate 490 (I-490), of less importance to the area's traffic patterns. Between the two cities, it is mostly a rural two-lane highway. The largest location on this stretch is the Genesee County city of Batavia, where NY 33 reconnects to NY 5 and crosses NY 63 and NY 98, two regionally important north–south highways. NY 33 overlaps with all three routes at one point or another as it traverses Batavia. A southerly alternate route, designated NY 33A, leaves NY 33 northeast of Batavia in Bergen and rejoins its parent in Rochester.

NY 33 was assigned in the mid-1920s, but only to the portion of its modern routing between Batavia and Rochester. It was extended on both ends—to Buffalo in the west and Marion in the east—as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York; however, the eastern extension was eliminated in 1949. In Buffalo, NY 33 was moved onto the Kensington Expressway in the mid-1960s, and its former surface routing along Genesee Street subsequently became the short-lived New York State Route 33B. Smaller realignments in the years since have moved NY 33's western terminus from the heart of downtown Buffalo to the northern fringe of the city's center.

Most of NY 33, including the entirety of the highway in Erie County, is state-maintained; however, two sections—from NY 5 to the eastern Batavia city line and all of NY 33 within the city of Rochester—are maintained by the cities of Batavia and Rochester, respectively.

The Kensington Expressway was constructed in 1958, in the place of the Humboldt Parkway, and radically changed the nature of majority-Black neighborhoods on the east-side of Buffalo.

Names of Humboldt Parkway residents in 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, and 1980 are available tracing the demographics of the parkway in federal censuses, pre and post highway.

The highway begins as two one-way streets, Goodell Street (traveling west) and East Tupper Street (traveling east). Both intersect with NY 5 (Ellicott Street) in Buffalo, from where they serve as a one-way couplet for three blocks before they merge to become the Kensington Expressway, a freeway. It initially travels through dense urban areas by way of a cut, in which both roadways are separated only by a Jersey barrier. The expressway runs past the Buffalo Museum of Science, located at Martin Luther King, Jr. Park, and through the middle of Humboldt Parkway in Buffalo, where the Scajaquada Expressway (NY 198) leaves at the former exit for Main Street. The section of the expressway between the Scajaquada and Harlem Road (NY 240) just outside the city limit is the busiest on all of NY 33, handling in excess of 100,000 vehicles per day in areas.

East of NY 198, the road becomes more open as it passes through neighborhoods with a more suburban residential feel to them. Along this stretch, NY 33 connects to several streets, including Bailey Avenue (U.S. Route 62 or US 62) and Harlem Road (NY 240). Past Harlem Road, the expressway makes a slight curve to the south as it prepares to meet a toll-free section of the New York State Thruway (I-90) at a cloverleaf interchange. Beyond I-90, the expressway veers to the south again, traversing an S-curve before connecting to Union Road (NY 277) by way of a partial interchange. After another 0.5 miles (0.8 km), NY 33 curves south under Genesee Street before joining it at a traffic light in front of the Buffalo Niagara International Airport.

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state highway in western New York, US
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