New York State Route 353

File:NY 353N in Salamanca.jpg

NY 353 begins at an intersection with NY 417 in the western portion of the city of Salamanca.{{bing maps |url=https://binged.it/2o1pAFq|title=overview map of NY 353 |accessdate=March 21, 2017}} It initially heads northward on the city-maintained Center Street{{cite web |url=https://www.dot.ny.gov/divisions/engineering/technical-services/hds-repository2/INV_2010-03-02_cattaraugus.csv |title=Cattaraugus County Inventory Listing |date=March 2, 2010 |publisher=New York State Department of Transportation |format=CSV |accessdate=December 22, 2010}} through a commercial section of Salamanca; however, the surroundings become more residential after the route crosses the Allegheny River. The highway exits the city limits shortly afterward, at which point maintenance of the highway shifts to the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT). Now in the surrounding town of Salamanca, NY 353 continues northward on Center Street into a large, mostly undeveloped valley surrounding Little Valley Creek, where the route passes east of Bucktooth Hill and west of Lindell Lookout. The Center Street name ends about {{convert|1|mi|1}} north of the city line at a junction with North State Street (CR 94/NY 950B).

Past State Street, NY 353 heads through the valley as an unnamed road, paralleling the former right-of-way of an Erie–Lackawanna rail line (now the Pat McGee Trail){{cite map |url=http://gis.ny.gov/gisdata/quads/drg24/usgspreview/index.cfm?code=o42078b6 |title=Salamanca Quadrangle – New York – Cattaraugus Co. |publisher=United States Geological Survey |series=7.5 Minute Series (Topographic) |year=1961 |scale=1:24,000 |accessdate=December 22, 2010}} into the town of Little Valley and the small hamlet of Elkdale, where the highway passes a local country club and intersects the North Country Trail. North of Elkdale, the route curves to the northwest, matching a similar turn in the path of the creek valley. This turn brings NY 353 to the outskirts of the village of Little Valley, where it intersects with CR 88 (Baker Road), CR 96 (Killborn Corners) and NY 242 at separate junctions east of the village limits. NY 353 becomes concurrent with the latter, following NY 242 into the village of Little Valley, a stark departure from the sparsely populated areas to the southeast. The concurrent routes, known as Rock City Street, head into the village's central business district, where NY 242 splits off to the southwest.

File:Route 353 Cattaraugus NY.jpg

North of Little Valley, NY 353 (known as Erie Street from the center of Little Valley to the village line) passes through mostly rural areas as it winds its way northwestward through a mountainous portion of Cattaraugus County. In the route's short distance in Mansfield, it intersects CR 5 (New Albion Road) and CR 14A (Buelow Road) before traveling through several miles of rural New Albion. Just outside the small village of Cattaraugus, NY 353 intersects CR 76 (Lovers Lane Road) and CR 6 (Leon Road). NY 353 becomes Main Street in Cattaraugus, in the middle of which it intersects CR 12, the main highway serving the towns of Otto and East Otto.

From here, the route crosses hilly, largely undeveloped sections of the towns of New Albion and Persia, meeting CR 4 (Broadway Road, the main spur into Gowanda), CR 57 (which heads into the northwest corner of the county into Markhams and Cottage), and the north end of CR 5 to reach the more level town of Dayton. Just west of the Persia–Dayton town line, NY 353 becomes Dayton–Cattaraugus Road and turns due north, paralleling the town line as it crosses a low-lying section of Dayton. After {{convert|2.5|mi|1}}, the route makes a sharp turn to the northwest, paralleling the New York and Lake Erie Railroad into the hamlet of Dayton, where NY 353 comes to an end at an intersection with US 62.

The section of modern NY 353 from the west end of the overlap with NY 242 in Little Valley to Salamanca was originally designated as part of Route 4, an unsigned legislative route, by the New York State Legislature in 1908.{{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jZ0AAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA54 |author=State of New York Department of Highways |title=The Highway Law |year=1909 |publisher=J. B. Lyon Company |location=Albany, NY |pages=54–55 |accessdate=June 8, 2010}}{{cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Sj4CAAAAYAAJ |author=New York State Department of Highways |title=Report of the State Commissioner of Highways |year=1920 |publisher=J. B. Lyon Company |location=Albany, NY |pages=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_Sj4CAAAAYAAJ/page/n500 502]–505 |accessdate=June 8, 2010}} When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, this section of legislative Route 4 became part of NY 18, which initially extended south through Salamanca to the Pennsylvania state line and north to Buffalo via Dayton. By 1926, the Salamanca–Little Valley highway was also designated as part of NY 17A, an alternate route of NY 17 between Randolph and Salamanca.{{cite news |title=New York's Main Highways Designated by Numbers |newspaper=The New York Times |date=December 21, 1924 |page=XX9}}{{cite map |title=Official Map Showing State Highways and other important roads |year=1926 |publisher=State of New York Department of Public Works |cartography=Rand McNally and Company}}

In the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York, NY 18 was extended northeastward from Buffalo to Rochester while NY 17A was renumbered to NY 17H.{{cite news |last=Dickinson |first=Leon A. |title=New Signs for State Highways |newspaper=The New York Times |date=January 12, 1930 |page=136}} The Salamanca–Dayton leg of NY 18 was modified twice in the 1930s. NY 18 initially passed through New Albion on its way from Little Valley to Cattaraugus; however, it was realigned {{circa|lk=no|1934}} to follow a more direct alignment between Little Valley and Cattaraugus that bypassed New Albion to the east.{{cite map |title=Texaco Road Map – New York |publisher=Texas Oil Company |year=1933 |cartography=Rand McNally and Company}}{{cite map |title=Road Map of New York |publisher=Texas Oil Company |year=1934 |cartography=Rand McNally and Company}} Meanwhile, the overlap with NY 17H was eliminated {{circa|lk=no|1937}} when the NY 17H designation was removed and replaced with an extended NY 242 west of Little Valley.{{cite map |title=New York |publisher=Standard Oil Company |year=1936 |cartography=General Drafting}}{{cite map |title=New York |publisher=Standard Oil Company |year=1937 |cartography=General Drafting}}

{{anchor|County Route 58}}

NY 353, meanwhile, was assigned {{circa|lk=no|1933}} to the portion of Peck Hill Road between US 62 west of the Dayton hamlet of the same name and NY 39 in Perrysburg.{{cite map |title=Texaco Road Map – New York |publisher=Texas Oil Company |year=1932 |cartography=Rand McNally and Company}} When NY 18 was truncated to its current western terminus in Lewiston on January 1, 1962, NY 353 was extended southeast to Salamanca by way of NY 18's former routing and a short overlap with US 62.{{cite news|title=Satamanca to Dayton Highway Designated Rt. 353 by State|url=http://fultonhistory.com/highlighter/highlight-for-xml?altUrl=http%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%252024%2FSalamanca%2520NY%2520Republican%2520Press%2FSalamanca%2520NY%2520Republican%2520Press%25201961%2FSalamanca%2520NY%2520Republican%2520Press%25201961%2520-%25202799.pdf%23xml%3Dhttp%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3Dffffffff802b1390%26DocId%3D4378434%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520X%26HitCount%3D4%26hits%3D28b%2B28c%2B2d7%2B2d8%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fNew%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&uri=http%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FNewspaper%252024%2FSalamanca%2520NY%2520Republican%2520Press%2FSalamanca%2520NY%2520Republican%2520Press%25201961%2FSalamanca%2520NY%2520Republican%2520Press%25201961%2520-%25202799.pdf&xml=http%3A%2F%2Ffultonhistory.com%2FdtSearch%2Fdtisapi6.dll%3Fcmd%3Dgetpdfhits%26u%3Dffffffff802b1390%26DocId%3D4378434%26Index%3DZ%253a%255cDISK%2520X%26HitCount%3D4%26hits%3D28b%2B28c%2B2d7%2B2d8%2B%26SearchForm%3D%252fFulton%255fNew%255fform%252ehtml%26.pdf&openFirstHlPage=false|accessdate=December 13, 2017|work=The Salamanca Republican-Press|date=November 16, 1961|page=3}} NY 353 ended at NY 17 in Salamanca.{{cite book|title=Official Description of Highway Touring Routes, Bicycling Touring Routes, Scenic Byways, & Commemorative/Memorial Designations in New York State |author=New York State Department of Transportation |author-link=New York State Department of Transportation |date=May 1986}} NY 353 remained unchanged until April 1, 1980, when ownership and maintenance of the original Dayton–Perrysburg segment of NY 353 was transferred from the state of New York to Cattaraugus County as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government.{{cite web |author=New York State Legislature |author-link=New York State Legislature |url=http://public.leginfo.state.ny.us/LAWSSEAF.cgi?QUERYTYPE=LAWS+&QUERYDATA=$$HAY341$$@TXHAY0341+&LIST=LAW+&TARGET=VIEW |title=New York State Highway Law § 341 |accessdate=June 8, 2010}} Following the swap, NY 353 was truncated to what had been the eastern terminus of its overlap with US 62 in Dayton.{{cite map |title=New York |publisher=Exxon |year=1977 |edition=1977–78 |cartography=General Drafting}}{{cite map |title=I Love New York Tourism Map |publisher=State of New York |cartography=Rand McNally and Company |year=1981}} The former routing of NY 353 along Peck Hill Road is now part of CR 58.{{Google maps |url=https://maps.google.com/maps?ie=UTF8&ll=42.435303,-78.998737&spn=0.046496,0.111322&z=14 |accessdate=April 20, 2008}}

Until the 1990s, the Salamanca end of NY 353 split in two directions, with the main route taking a more westerly track into the west end of Salamanca and an eastern route, designated as Reference Route 950B (but marked "TO 353" on the lone road marker), entered Salamanca and merged with city-maintained State Street. In the late 1990s, the northern half of 950B was handed over to the Cattaraugus County Highway Department (which had shared maintenance of that route before then, as Route 94) and the junction restructured. The southern half of NY 950B remains under state maintenance.

{{NYinttop|length_ref={{cite web|url=https://www.dot.ny.gov/divisions/engineering/technical-services/hds-respository/Traffic%20Volume%20Report%202008.pdf |title=2008 Traffic Volume Report for New York State |date=June 16, 2009 |format=PDF |page=218 |publisher=New York State Department of Transportation |accessdate=February 1, 2010 }}|county=Cattaraugus}}

{{NYint

|location=Salamanca

|area=city

|mile=0.00

|road={{jct|state=NY|NY|417|I|86|to2=yes}}

|notes=Southern terminus

}}

{{NYint

|location=Little Valley

|area=town

|mile=6.22

|road={{jct|state=NY|NY|242|dir1=east}}

|type=concur

|notes=Eastern terminus of NY 242 / NY 353 overlap

}}

{{NYint

|location=Little Valley

|area=village

|mile=7.43

|road={{jct|state=NY|NY|242|dir1=west|city1=East Randolph}}

|type=concur

|notes=Western terminus of NY 242 / NY 353 overlap

}}

{{NYint

|location=Dayton

|mile=23.97

|road={{jct|state=NY|US|62|city1=Gowanda|city2=Buffalo}}

|notes=Northern terminus; hamlet of Dayton

}}

{{NYintbtm}}

{{Portal|U.S. roads}}

• List of county routes in Cattaraugus County, New York

{{Reflist|2}}

{{Commons category|New York State Route 353}}

{{Attached KML}}

{{NYSR external links|type=N|nyroutes=yes|termini=yes|route=353}}

353

Category:Transportation in Cattaraugus County, New York