New York State Route366 (NY366) is an east–west state highway located entirely within Tompkins County in the Finger Lakes region of New York in the United States. It runs for from State Street (NY 79) just east of downtown Ithaca to NY 38 in Freeville. NY366 parallels Fall Creek from Varna to Freeville and passes along the southern edge of the Cornell University campus. NY366 was assigned as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York; however, it was initially nothing more than a connector between NY 13 in Etna and NY38 in Freeville. In the 1960s, NY13 was moved onto a new expressway bypassing Ithaca to the west and north. The former surface routing of NY13 into downtown Ithaca became an extension of NY366.

Route description

NY366 begins at an intersection with NY 79 (East State Street) in the city of Ithaca. NY366 proceeds eastward along Mitchell Street, a two-lane residential street until the intersecting with Ithaca Road, where NY366 turns to the north on Ithaca. Mitchell Street continues eastward, becoming County Route110 (CR110) at the city line. This intersection also served as the former western terminus of NY 393, a designation eliminated in 1980. NY366 enters the neighborhood of North Belle Sherman, bending northward as Dryden Road after the intersection with Maple Avenue. After the intersection, NY366 passes along the southern edge of the campus for Cornell University. Heading northeast out of the city, the route intersects with CR 122 (Caldwell Road) at the eastern edge of the campus. After leaving Ithaca, NY366 enters the town of Dryden, intersecting with the former eastern terminus of NY 392, Forest Home Drive, before entering the hamlet of Varna. Varna consists of a stretch of residential homes on each side of NY366. NY366 turns to the northeast through Dryden, intersecting the northern terminus of CR 161 (Turkey Hill Road) before intersecting with NY 13 after Baker Hill Road. NY13 and NY366 form a concurrency on this stretch, as a four-lane arterial known still as Dryden Road. The roads parallel Fall Creek nearby, eventually narrowing in lanes. At the intersection with Main Street, NY13 continues eastward, while NY366 turns northward on Main Street, entering the hamlet of Etna. In Etna, NY366 intersects with CR 109 (Etna Lane) on the shore of Fall Creek. The two routes are concurrent for less than a block before CR109 heads eastward towards NY13. NY366 parallels Fall Creek through Dryden, sticking as a two-lane local road before entering the town of Freeville. In Freeville, NY366 retains its Main Street moniker, but becomes a residential street before intersecting with NY 38 (Railroad Street / Groton Road). This intersection serves as the eastern terminus for NY366, but the right-of-way continues out of Freeville as CR 105 (Fall Creek Road) toward the hamlet of Red Mills.

History

In 1908, the New York State Legislature created Route9, an unsigned legislative route that ran from the Southern Tier to Bouckville via Ithaca and Cortland. Route9 exited the city of Ithaca on Forest Home Drive to near Varna, where it picked up modern NY366 east through Etna to Freeville, then continuing southeastward toward Dryden on what is now NY 38. When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, the segment of legislative Route9 between Varna and Etna became part of NY 13. Unlike Route9 before it, NY13 bypassed Freeville to the south in favor of a direct alignment between Etna and Dryden. Also assigned at this time was NY 26, a highway that initially extended from Ithaca to Syracuse via Moravia and Skaneateles. NY26 began in downtown Ithaca and overlappedped with NY13 east to Etna, where it turned northeast to follow old legislative Route9 to Freeville. Past Freeville, the route continued northward toward Syracuse on modern NY38. The overlap between NY13 and NY26 was eliminated in the late 1920s when NY26 was truncated to begin at the former east end of the concurrency in Etna. In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, the NY26 designation was reassigned to another highway off to the east. The southernmost portion of NY26's former routing between Etna and Freeville was redesignated as NY366.

NY13 was realigned to bypass the Cornell University grounds to the south on State (NY 79) and Mitchell streets and Ithaca and Dryden roads. Its old alignment through the college became NY 392. In the early 1960s, a new expressway was built along the eastern shore of Cayuga Lake, bypassing downtown Ithaca to the west and north. NY13 was altered to follow Meadow Street and the freeway between southwestern Ithaca and the town of Dryden while the portion of NY13's old routing that did not overlap NY79 became a westward extension of NY366.

Major intersections

See also

References

External links