New York State Route 3A (NY 3A) is a county-maintained

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

Jefferson County, New York Jefferson County is a county on the northern border of the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 116,721. Its county seat is Watertown. The county is named after Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United Stat ...

, in the United States. The route is an alternate route of NY 3 between the village of Deferiet and Fargo, a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play, with 29,551 words. Set in Denmark, the play depicts ...

within the town of

Wilna Vilnius ( , ; see also #Etymology and other names, other names) is the capital and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the munic ...

. While NY 3 veers south to serve the village of

Carthage Carthage was the capital city of Ancient Carthage, on the eastern side of the Lake of Tunis in what is now Tunisia. Carthage was one of the most important trading hubs of the Ancient Mediterranean and one of the most affluent cities of the classi ...

, NY 3A follows a direct east–west alignment between the two communities. The eastern half of the route passes through the

Fort Drum Fort Drum is a U.S. Army military reservation and a census-designated place (CDP) in Jefferson County, on the northern border of New York, United States. The population of the CDP portion of the base was 12,955 at the 2010 census. It is home ...

limits. All of NY 3A is co-designated as County Route 36 (CR 36) and is co-signed as such. The origins of the route date back to the 1930s when it was first designated as part of NY 3. The alignments of NY 3 and New York State Route 3G between Deferiet and Fargo were flipped , placing NY 3 on its modern alignment via Carthage and NY 3G on modern NY 3A. The NY 3G designation was eliminated in the 1940s. Its former alignment went unnumbered until September 1950, when it was redesignated as NY 3A.

Route description

NY 3A begins at an intersection with NY 3 in the village of Deferiet. It heads northeastward, passing to the south of the village center as it heads through an undeveloped area of the community. It continues across a small canal and past a chemical plant before turning eastward and leaving the Deferiet village limits. The route heads on through the town of

, passing through a small, unnamed community built up around CR 37 and little else before entering the limits of

. While in Fort Drum, NY 3A heads through a dense forest as it heads across an area with no development whatsoever. This trend finally ceases in the small

of Fargo, where NY 3A passes by a handful of buildings before ending at another junction with NY 3. All of NY 3A is maintained by Jefferson County; as a result, it is co-designated and co-signed as CR 36.

History

NY 3 originally went through

on its way from Deferiet to Fargo. It was realigned to bypass Carthage to the north on modern NY 3A. The former routing of NY 3 between Deferiet and Carthage was originally designated as NY 3F; however, it was redesignated as NY 3G by the following year. NY 3 was moved back to the Deferiet–Carthage–Fargo alignment while the NY 3G designation was transferred to the former routing of NY 3 between Deferiet and Fargo. The NY 3G designation was removed in the 1940s. Its former routing remained unnumbered until September 1950, when it was redesignated as NY 3A. In 2016, a study by the

Missile Defense Agency The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is the section of the United States government's Department of Defense responsible for developing a layered defense against ballistic missiles. It had its origins in the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) which ...

of the

United States Department of Defense The United States Department of Defense (DoD, USDOD or DOD) is an executive branch department of the federal government charged with coordinating and supervising all agencies and functions of the government directly related to national secu ...

proposed the idea of shutting down NY 3A to the public for a missile defense site at

. Ceasing to be a public highway, the traffic that would follow NY 3A (

AADT Annual average daily traffic, abbreviated AADT, is a measure used primarily in transportation planning, transportation engineering and retail location selection. Traditionally, it is the total volume of vehicle traffic of a highway or road for a y ...

of 2,298) would be directed onto NY 3 directly through the village of Carthage.

Major intersections

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:New York State Route 003a 003A Transportation in Jefferson County, New York

Route description

History

Major intersections

See also

References

External links