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Genesee County used to be part of the metro area and was dropped when they created Micropolitan areas. I'm not sure what year that was, but it represented a drop of 50-55,000 population. Also, Yates County was added about 5 years ago (less than 30,000).
Not sure of the exact figures, but a county would join a metro area based on a certain amount of economic activity tied to the host county. Rochester has always been more suburban than Buffalo. If you watch the expressways at the county lines, you will see a significant amount of cars leaving Monroe County at rush hour. BTW, Monroe County is only about 60% the land area as Erie County. The 2019 population you quote is an estimate, and some publications still don't include Yates County. The last I heard for the metro area was about 1,084,000
Wikipedia's estimate, which is the one I listed, would include Yates as Yates is listed there as being part of the metro. Well, I presume that, anyway. Me personally, Yates is the one of the six counties I would not have been able to name--in fact I've never heard of it until right now. Stayed on Keuka Lake once as a kid (our family's cottage was a few miles outside Penn Yan), but apparently at the age of 12 or whatever I was not paying attention to what county I was in, lol. When I'd go running in the morning I'd pass Keuka College, I remember that much. I could probably find the place we stayed in if I made enough of an effort on Google Maps
ETA that Wikipedia identifies Yates as the 'third-least populous county in New York', with an estimated population right around 25,000.
..........For Rochester, I would say the defining moment was when XEROX moved their corporate headquarters to Connecticut to be near financial access. If instead, they could have lured more financial capital, it would also help other companies as well. Unfortunately, at the time XEROX was a brand new unproven company, with a totally new product. In fact, in the beginning, they couldn't even sell the machines, so they put them in businesses and charged a nickel per copy. Once people got hooked, they found it better to own or lease their own machine.
I wouldn't argue that, at all. There was also one other point of discussion, that came out of my previously mentioned high school class discussion. If you look on a map of the state, you'll notice that the NY State Thruway goes right through Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo. It does NOT, however, go through Rochester. It passes about 7-8 miles south of the heart of the city.
Yes, the Thruway takes the straightest route between Buffalo and Syracuse, and in later years, the situation was remedied by the Federal government, when they constructed I490. However, going back to my high school sociology class, my teacher said that at the time the Thruway was on the drawing board, then Governor, Thomas Dewey, had political adversaries in Rochester, so he "got even" with them by drawing a relatively straight line between Syracuse and Buffalo, and declared that it would be the route of the Thruway, and that's that.....
And BTW, what a PITA that used to be. I remember back when I was a kid, before 490 was constructed, and the ONLY entry/exit for the T'way, for Rochester, was the exit at West Henrietta Road. We were going somewhere east, probably back to our home state of NJ, to visit the relatives. At the time, we lived on the northeast side of Rochester, near the intersection of Culver Road and Empire Blvd. To get to the T'way, to head east, no less, we had to drive south west, to West Henrietta road, to enter the T'way, then immediately head back in an easterly direction.....
And a "memory check" for anybody who remembers back that far, remember the big, rather elaborate, "art deco" themed Holiday Inn, that used to be adjacent to the T'way??
I wouldn't argue that, at all. There was also one other point of discussion, that came out of my previously mentioned high school class discussion. If you look on a map of the state, you'll notice that the NY State Thruway goes right through Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo. It does NOT, however, go through Rochester. It passes about 7-8 miles south of the heart of the city.
Yes, the Thruway takes the straightest route between Buffalo and Syracuse, and in later years, the situation was remedied by the Federal government, when they constructed I490. However, going back to my high school sociology class, my teacher said that at the time the Thruway was on the drawing board, then Governor, Thomas Dewey, had political adversaries in Rochester, so he "got even" with them by drawing a relatively straight line between Syracuse and Buffalo, and declared that it would be the route of the Thruway, and that's that.....
And BTW, what a PITA that used to be. I remember back when I was a kid, before 490 was constructed, and the ONLY entry/exit for the T'way, for Rochester, was the exit at West Henrietta Road. We were going somewhere east, probably back to our home state of NJ, to visit the relatives. At the time, we lived on the northeast side of Rochester, near the intersection of Culver Road and Empire Blvd. To get to the T'way, to head east, no less, we had to drive south west, to West Henrietta road, to enter the T'way, then immediately head back in an easterly direction.....
And a "memory check" for anybody who remembers back that far, remember the big, rather elaborate, "art deco" themed Holiday Inn, that used to be adjacent to the T'way??
Technically the 90 misses Buffalo city proper, although it is very close to the city line at the 190 interchange. But I get your point
I wouldn't argue that, at all. There was also one other point of discussion, that came out of my previously mentioned high school class discussion. If you look on a map of the state, you'll notice that the NY State Thruway goes right through Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo. It does NOT, however, go through Rochester. It passes about 7-8 miles south of the heart of the city.
Yes, the Thruway takes the straightest route between Buffalo and Syracuse, and in later years, the situation was remedied by the Federal government, when they constructed I490. However, going back to my high school sociology class, my teacher said that at the time the Thruway was on the drawing board, then Governor, Thomas Dewey, had political adversaries in Rochester, so he "got even" with them by drawing a relatively straight line between Syracuse and Buffalo, and declared that it would be the route of the Thruway, and that's that.....
And BTW, what a PITA that used to be. I remember back when I was a kid, before 490 was constructed, and the ONLY entry/exit for the T'way, for Rochester, was the exit at West Henrietta Road. We were going somewhere east, probably back to our home state of NJ, to visit the relatives. At the time, we lived on the northeast side of Rochester, near the intersection of Culver Road and Empire Blvd. To get to the T'way, to head east, no less, we had to drive south west, to West Henrietta road, to enter the T'way, then immediately head back in an easterly direction.....
And a "memory check" for anybody who remembers back that far, remember the big, rather elaborate, "art deco" themed Holiday Inn, that used to be adjacent to the T'way??
Rochester didn't even have a functioning expressway system until ( I don't remember exactly, but it really sucked and was overdue when it was completed. 40 years ago?) I say completed as to where it is today. There is much that never was built.
Yes, I've heard the story about snubbing Rochester too. I believe Rochester could use probably 4 more thruway exits, but that will never happen as everything has been developed residentially. An attempt was made to connect 259 a few years back and was rebuffed.
Rochester didn't even have a functioning expressway system until ( I don't remember exactly, but it really sucked and was overdue when it was completed. 40 years ago?) I say completed as to where it is today. There is much that never was built.
I came to Rochester, along with my family, when my father accepted a job that was located here. We arrived in late December of 1957, with his job beginning on January 1, 1958. I was approaching the age of 6, at that time. My father was the area representative for an industrial equipment company, and when school was out, I used to ride "shotgun", when he went out on sales calls, so I got to see the area, and the 490 construction, firsthand.
To the best of my recollection, Route 490 was both built in stages, as well as the work starting in more than one place at a time. My early recollections were the area near Victor, near the Thruway was one of the "starting points", and heading westward, toward the city, as well as the infamous "can of worms", due to it's complexity. I do remember seeing some of the beautiful homes, on East Avenue, right before they were torn down, for the construction of the "Can", so that must have occurred in the 1958-59 time frame. Other "bits and pieces" were already in process, when we arrived in Rochester, although not yet on a large scale.
My parents bought a house in southeast Irondequoit, in the summer of 1960, and at that point, construction of 590 (back then, NY 47) was working it's way north, toward Sea Breeze, and I believe it was at a pretty good pace. What was a real "head scratcher" was how long it took the western portion of 490 to be constructed. First the "neighborhood association" protested the section from downtown to Mt. Read Boulevard being constructed, and when they eventually lost their case, the roadway was built. But it then sat dormant, for several years, before construction resumed, around 1967-68, and the road continued westward.
I didn't personally travel to the west side of Monroe County, too much, back then, so I'm not all that familiar with the construction timeline of 490, between the LeRoy exit of the T'way and the city. But I do know that a lot of it was completed by 1968-69.
And yes, as you ("JW") mentioned, some of the x-way was never completed. Possibly because the area never grew to the population that was once envisioned?? We'll never know....
I watched this video, and found a couple of things of interest. In the first minute, or so, when the narrative was "selling" the need for the Thruway, by showing heavy truck traffic on narrow roads, it reminded me of a couple of trips my family took, from Rochester, back to my father's hometown of Wilkes Barre, PA. in the late 50s-early 60s. We travelled south on Route 15, which was a MAJOR north/south route back then, for a portion of the trip, going up and down the mountains, on a road that wasn't much wider that 16-18 feet.
Secondly, I was somewhat surprised, where the video showed the engineers looking at the map that showed the proposed Thruway route, and that it also showed the proposed route for 490. In other words, they never intended the T'way to pass near Rochester, but instead spent the $$$ to build the T'way PLUS a second road to bring traffic in and out of Rochester.....
The donut effect (people leaving the cities for the burbs...) in Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo caused a lot of outering burbs to grow rapidly....albeit without any real growth in the metro areas as a whole. Economically...these area have been stagnant as well (in Rochs case...Kodak blew up). You need real job growth and neither Syracuse Roch or Buffalo has been that great since the 60s.... The Buffalo burbs (and expressway plans) were planned for an area that stopped growing around 1965 or so... bigger point Lancaster stopped growing because Buffalo stopped growing economically and population-wise.
The donut effect (people leaving the cities for the burbs...) in Syracuse, Rochester, and Buffalo caused a lot of outering burbs to grow rapidly....albeit without any real growth in the metro areas as a whole. Economically...these area have been stagnant as well (in Rochs case...Kodak blew up). You need real job growth and neither Syracuse Roch or Buffalo has been that great since the 60s.... The Buffalo burbs (and expressway plans) were planned for an area that stopped growing around 1965 or so... bigger point Lancaster stopped growing because Buffalo stopped growing economically and population-wise.
4% isn't much for 10 years...again its the "donut" effect which is symptomatic of a lot of the Upstate NY cities (and a lot of other metros outside of NY...). Buffalo isn't growing as a whole....the burbs aren't really either anymore.
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