New York State Route 17M (NY 17M) is an east–west
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 ...
in
Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
,
New York
New York most commonly refers to:
* New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York
* New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States
New York may also refer to:
Film and television
* '' ...
, in the United States. It extends for from west of the city of
Middletown to what is currently the north–south section of
NY 17 just southeast of the village of
Harriman. It is a busy main street in Middletown and the
village of Monroe; in the former, it divides into a parkway for several blocks and forms the city's major commercial strip, located between the downtown district and an interchange with
Interstate 84 (I-84). The rest of the road is a two-lane rural route. Between
New Hampton and
Goshen, the highway
overlaps with
U.S. Route 6 (US 6). The easternmost section of that overlap near Goshen is routed on the Quickway, making a three-route concurrency with NY 17.
Most of NY 17M follows the course used by NY 17 prior to the construction of the Quickway through the
Catskill Mountains
The Catskill Mountains, also known as the Catskills, are a physiographic province of the larger Appalachian Mountains, located in southeastern New York. As a cultural and geographic region, the Catskills are generally defined as those areas c ...
. The first section of the Quickway opened in 1951 and extended from
Fair Oaks to Goshen. NY 17M was initially assigned in September 1950 to NY 17's old surface routing between Fair Oaks and Middletown; however, it was extended east to Harriman and, for a brief time, northwest to
Wurtsboro
Wurtsboro is a village located on U.S. Route 209 in the town of Mamakating in Sullivan County, New York, United States, near its junction with New York State Route 17 (which is being upgraded to interstate standards and will be renumbered as ...
as more sections of the freeway were completed.
Route description
The portions of NY 17M that lie north and east of the city of
Middletown are maintained by the
New York State Department of Transportation
The New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) is the department of the New York state government responsible for the development and operation of highways, railroads, mass transit systems, ports, waterways and aviation facilities in ...
(NYSDOT). Within the Middletown city limits, NY 17M is city-maintained.
Wallkill and Middletown
County Route 76 (CR 76) becomes NY 17M when the highway passes through the site of a former
interchange (once exit 118A) with the nearby
Quickway
New York State Route 17 (NY 17) is a major state highway that extends for through the Southern Tier and Downstate New York, Downstate regions of New York (state), New York in the United States. It begins at the New York–Pennsylvania ...
(
NY 17) in the town of
Wallkill, located in northern
Orange County
Orange County most commonly refers to:
*Orange County, California, part of the Los Angeles metropolitan area
Orange County may also refer to:
U.S. counties
*Orange County, Florida, containing Orlando
*Orange County, Indiana
*Orange County, New ...
.
The junction was just north of the former
right-of-way
Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another.
A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...
of the
New York, Ontario and Western Railway
The New York, Ontario and Western Railway, more commonly known as the O&W or NYO&W, was a regional railroad with origins in 1868, lasting until March 29, 1957 (the last train ran from Norwich to Middletown, NY on this date), after which it was or ...
, which NY 17M crosses as it makes its way southward over some gentle, lightly developed hills. After , the road reaches a signalized intersection with
NY 302, its first junction with another state highway. The junction currently serves as NY 302's southern terminus;
however, NY 302 once continued south to
Middletown by way of an
overlap
Overlap may refer to:
* In set theory, an overlap of elements shared between sets is called an intersection, as in a Venn diagram.
* In music theory, overlap is a synonym for reinterpretation of a chord at the boundary of two musical phrases
* Ove ...
with NY 17M. Continuing on, NY 17M traverses increasingly developed areas, passing through the
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 ...
of Rockville on its way to the densely populated neighborhood of
Washington Heights, situated just outside Middletown.
![NY 17M parkway in Middletown](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7d/NY_17M_parkway_in_Middletown.jpg)
The route seamlessly passes from Washington Heights to Middletown, where it becomes known as North Street. The street is initially fairly wide—featuring shoulders on each side—but it narrows in the residential neighborhoods closer to the city's center. Upon reaching the northern edge of Middletown's central business district, the route turns right onto Wickham Avenue, which carries
NY 211 through northern Middletown. The resulting overlap between NY 17M and NY 211 is a
wrong-way concurrency
A concurrency in a road network is an instance of one physical roadway bearing two or more different route numbers. When two roadways share the same right-of-way, it is sometimes called a common section or commons. Other terminology for a concurre ...
: NY 17M eastbound is concurrent with NY 211 westbound and vice versa. NY 17M and NY 211 head west along the fringe of downtown, climbing slightly in elevation as the street passes through mostly residential areas. After seven blocks, Wickham Avenue merges into West Main Street; however, the road's surroundings remain unchanged.
NY 17M and NY 211 continue along West Main Street for another four blocks, traversing a slight westerly turn in the street prior to intersecting Monhagen Avenue in the western part of the city. Both routes leave Main Street here: NY 211 turns right, following the road northwest toward
Otisville while NY 17M heads left, proceeding southeastward toward downtown. It continues through a six-block commercial and residential area to Mill Street, at which point Monhagen Avenue becomes Fulton Street and expands to become a
parkway
A parkway is a landscaped thoroughfare.''"parkway."''Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007). The term is particularly used for a roadway in a park or ...
with a tree-lined
median strip
The median strip, central reservation, roadway median, or traffic median is the reserved area that separates opposing lanes of traffic on divided roadways such as divided highways, dual carriageways, freeways, and motorways. The term also a ...
. This stretch continues for five blocks along the southern edge of downtown Middletown to Academy Avenue, where NY 17M turns right and heads southward. After just two blocks, the route changes streets for the final time in Middletown, veering left onto Dolson Avenue.
East of Middletown
![US 6-NY 17M in Wallkill Valley](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/80/US_6-NY_17M_in_Wallkill_Valley.jpg)
As Dolson Avenue, NY 17M passes by a single residential block before entering a linear commercial district that follows the highway to an interchange with
I-84
Interstate 84 may refer to:
* Interstate 84 (Oregon–Utah), passing through Idaho, formerly known as Interstate 80N
* Interstate 84 (Pennsylvania–Massachusetts)
Interstate 84 (I-84) is an Interstate Highway in the Northeaster ...
roughly to the south. The route initially remains two lanes wide, but widens to four lanes after crossing the
Middletown and New Jersey Railway at-grade. This stretch of NY 17M also features a
center left-turn lane
A reversible lane (British English: tidal flow) is a lane in which traffic may travel in either direction, depending on certain conditions. Typically, it is meant to improve traffic flow during rush hours, by having overhead traffic lights and li ...
to accommodate the traffic turning into the many commercial plazas on either side. The road remains within the Middletown city limits until a block before the intersection where
US 6 comes in from the west and joins NY 17M. Together, they cross over I-84 at exit 3, providing access to the cities of
Port Jervis
Port Jervis is a city located at the confluence of the Neversink and Delaware rivers in western Orange County, New York, United States, north of the Delaware Water Gap. Its population was 8,775 at the 2020 census. The communities of Deerpark, ...
and
Newburgh in the western and eastern parts of the county, respectively.
Just past I-84, the
Wawayanda hamlet of
New Hampton begins, with car dealerships and other commercial establishments on either side. The road narrows to two lanes as the combined highways begin a slow, gentle descent through less developed areas to the bridge over the
Wallkill River
The Wallkill River, a tributary of the Hudson, drains Lake Mohawk in Sparta, New Jersey, flowing from there generally northeasterly U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map, accessed Octo ...
, situated at the northern tip of the county's
Black Dirt Region. Short sections of the approach on either side add a passing lane in the uphill direction. The river marks the
Goshen town line, and the slight climb out of the river depression is accompanied again with some extra lanes. Past the climb, development aside the road picks up slightly, although most of the land around the highway remains undeveloped as open fields or forests. US 6 and NY 17M continue to the western outskirts of the
village of Goshen, where they merge into NY 17 at exit 123.
![NY 17M at Brookview Farm, Chester, NY](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/NY_17M_at_Brookview_Farm%2C_Chester%2C_NY.jpg)
NY 17M follows the Quickway for about 1 mile (1.6 km), before exiting at an interchange (exit 124) and meeting
NY 17A and
NY 207 in a commercialized area southwest of the center of Goshen. Though signage still exists eastbound on the Quickway for the old exit 125 directing NY 17M to exit there, this interchange no longer services NY 17M. From here to the
village of Chester, NY 17M closely follows the NY 17 freeway, serving a handful of homes in an otherwise undeveloped area adjacent to the Quickway. In Chester, NY 17M becomes Brookside Avenue and intersects with
NY 94 in the commercial center of the community. It continues on, passing through the rural areas of the southern portion of the town of
Blooming Grove prior to becoming heavily developed as it passes into the
town of Monroe.
![NY 17M at NY 17 in Woodbury](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/NY_17M_at_NY_17_in_Woodbury.jpg)
Just inside the town line, NY 17M turns southward, leaving the vicinity of the Quickway and entering the
village of Monroe. It bypasses the downtown portion of the village and its
historic district
A historic district or heritage district is a section of a city which contains older buildings considered valuable for historical or architectural reasons. In some countries or jurisdictions, historic districts receive legal protection from c ...
to the west and south. Despite this fact, it still serves as one of the community's major commercial strips, intersecting
NY 208 in a built-up area due west of downtown. The route continues to the east, serving commercial and residential areas on its way to the nearby village of
Harriman. Development abates slightly past Harriman as NY 17M continues with a slight southward bent towards its final junction with NY 17 just outside the Harriman village limits in the town and village of
Woodbury Woodbury may refer to:
Geography
Antarctica
*Woodbury Glacier, a glacier on Graham Land, British Antarctic Territory
Australia
* Woodbury, Tasmania, a locality in Australia
England
* Woodbury, Bournemouth, an area in Dorset
*Woodbury, East Devo ...
.
History
Origins and designation
What is now NY 17M was originally designated as part of Route 4 by the
New York State Legislature
The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: The New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an official ...
in 1908. The unsigned
legislative route
In the United States, a legislative route (LR) or legislative highway is a highway defined by laws passed in a state legislature. The numbering of such highways may or may not correspond to the numbers familiar to the public as part of the state, ...
extended across the
Southern Tier
The Southern Tier is a geographic subregion of the broader Upstate New York region of New York State, consisting of counties west of the Catskill Mountains in Delaware County and geographically situated along or very near the northern border ...
of New York, beginning near the shores of
Lake Erie
Lake Erie ( "eerie") is the fourth largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and therefore also has t ...
in
Westfield and ending at the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
in
Highland Falls.
The first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, at which time most of legislative Route 4 was designated as
NY 17.
While Route 4 went northeast from
Harriman,
NY 17 continued south from the village toward the
New Jersey
New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...
state line.
In the late 1940s, construction began on the
Quickway
New York State Route 17 (NY 17) is a major state highway that extends for through the Southern Tier and Downstate New York, Downstate regions of New York (state), New York in the United States. It begins at the New York–Pennsylvania ...
, a
limited-access highway
A limited-access road, known by various terms worldwide, including limited-access highway, dual-carriageway, expressway, limited access freeway, and partial controlled access highway, is a highway or arterial road for high-speed traffic which ...
connecting
Binghamton
Binghamton () is a city in the U.S. state of New York, and serves as the county seat of Broome County. Surrounded by rolling hills, it lies in the state's Southern Tier region near the Pennsylvania border, in a bowl-shaped valley at the conflue ...
to Harriman by way of the NY 17 corridor. The first portion to be built was the section between exit 118A in
Fair Oaks and exit 123 near
Goshen, which opened to traffic in September 1950.
NY 17 was subsequently realigned to bypass
Middletown to the northeast on the new freeway while the former routing of NY 17 between
US 6 south of Middletown and the new Fair Oaks interchange was redesignated as NY 17M. The remainder of old NY 17 from Middletown to Goshen remained part of US 6, which had
overlap
Overlap may refer to:
* In set theory, an overlap of elements shared between sets is called an intersection, as in a Venn diagram.
* In music theory, overlap is a synonym for reinterpretation of a chord at the boundary of two musical phrases
* Ove ...
ped with NY 17 between Middletown and Goshen.
On December 1, 1955, the section between Goshen and Harriman was designated as an extension of NY 17M with the realignment of NY 17 and US 6 onto the Quickway.
![NY 17MEasternTerminus](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/NY_17MEasternTerminus.jpg)
The Goshen–
Chester
Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...
and Chester–
Harriman segments of the Quickway were completed in October 1954 and August 1955, respectively, creating a continuous limited-access highway between Fair Oaks and the
New York State Thruway
{{Infobox road
, state = NY
, type = NYST
, alternate_name = Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway
, maint = NYSTA
, map = {{maplink, frame=yes, plain=yes, frame-align=center, frame-width=290, type=line, stroke-width=2, type2=line, from2=New Yor ...
.
US 6 and NY 17 were moved onto the highway as sections opened to traffic, while NY 17M was extended eastward along NY 17's old routing to Harriman following the completion of the Quickway between Chester and the Thruway. On October 23, 1958, the portion of the Quickway between Fair Oaks and
Wurtsboro
Wurtsboro is a village located on U.S. Route 209 in the town of Mamakating in Sullivan County, New York, United States, near its junction with New York State Route 17 (which is being upgraded to interstate standards and will be renumbered as ...
(exit 114) was completed as part of a realigned NY 17. The former surface routing of NY 17 between the two locations initially became part of NY 17M;
however, this extension was eliminated in the late 1960s.
Realignments and ramp closures
NY 17M originally followed a slightly different alignment through downtown Middletown. When the route was first assigned, it continued south from Wickham Avenue on North Street, proceeding into what was then the main commercial hub of the city. The highway rejoined its modern alignment at the intersection of South Street and Fulton Street south of downtown.
In 1969, the city of Middletown began planning a project that would rehabilitate part of North Street. As part of the project, the section of North Street between Orchard Street and Main Street would be closed to traffic and converted into a
pedestrian mall
Pedestrian zones (also known as auto-free zones and car-free zones, as pedestrian precincts in British English, and as pedestrian malls in the United States and Australia) are areas of a city or town reserved for pedestrian-only use and in whi ...
. The street was closed in early 1970, forcing NY 17M to be realigned onto Wickham Avenue, West Main Street, and Monhagen Avenue. The pedestrian mall project faced opposition from business owners, leading to its cancellation on February 9, 1970. North Street was reopened one day later; however, the rerouting of NY 17M proved to be permanent.
When the Quickway was first built, exit 118A was made up of two ramps, one leading from NY 17 eastbound to NY 17M and another connecting NY 17M westbound to NY 17 westbound. The exit was eliminated at some point after 1996. The westbound on-ramp was converted into a residential street known as Sands Road West while the eastbound half of the exit was completely removed. As a result, NY 17M's western terminus is no longer at an intersecting road. Instead, the highway simply changes from a state highway to a county road at the former site of the exit.
In December 2020, NYSDOT completed construction of a new exit 125, which was built to accommodate the new
Legoland New York
Legoland New York Resort is a theme park in Goshen, New York owned by Merlin Entertainments. Consisting of seven Lego themed lands on a property of . The park contains numerous structures and attractions made of Lego or designed to resemble L ...
. As a result, the ramps of the previous exit 125 were closed in October 2020,
creating a discontinuity in the route that still exists as of March 2020. The closest exit to the former routing is exit 124.
Major intersections
NY 17M has exit numbers for the duration of its
concurrency
Concurrent means happening at the same time. Concurrency, concurrent, or concurrence may refer to:
Law
* Concurrence, in jurisprudence, the need to prove both ''actus reus'' and ''mens rea''
* Concurring opinion (also called a "concurrence"), a ...
with the Quickway (
New York State Route 17
New York State Route 17 (NY 17) is a major state highway that extends for through the Southern Tier and Downstate regions of New York in the United States. It begins at the Pennsylvania state line in Mina and follows the Souther ...
and future
Interstate 86).
See also
*
*
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:New York State Route 017m
017M
Transportation in Orange County, New York
Interstate 86 (Pennsylvania–New York)