page_title: Rochester, New York
section_title: Major highways and roads
hierarchical_section_title: Rochester, New York / Transportation / Major highways and roads
caption_attribution_description: English: Main Street looking east, Rochester, New York
context_page_description: Rochester is a city in the U.S. state of New York, the seat of Monroe County and the third-most populous after New York City and Buffalo with an estimated population of 205,695 in 2019. The city of Rochester forms the core of a much larger suburban, and rural area. Rochester has a greater metro population of around 1 million people, across six counties.
  Rochester was one of the United States' first boomtowns, initially due to the fertile Genesee River Valley, which gave rise to numerous flour mills, and then as a manufacturing center which spurred further rapid population growth. The city rose to prominence as the birthplace and home of some of America's most iconic companies, in particular Eastman Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb which saw the region become a global center for science, technology, research and development. This status has been aided by the presence of several internationally renowned universities and their research programs; these schools along with many other smaller colleges have played an increasingly large role in Greater Rochester's economy.
context_section_description: Three exits off the New York State Thruway (Interstate 90) serve Rochester. Rochester has an extensive system of limited-access highways (called 'expressways' or just 'highways', never 'freeways') which connects all parts of the city and the Thruway.
  Rochester's expressway system, conceived in the 1950s, was designed as two concentric circles with feeder expressways from the west, south and east. The system allows for quick travel within the metropolitan area and a lack of the traffic gridlock typically found in cities of comparable size; in part this is because the system was designed to accommodate rapid travel between the suburbs and downtown, and also because it was built when the city's population was over 330,000 whereas today it is an entire third less.
  The Outer Loop circles just outside the city limits while the former Inner Loop once circled around the immediate downtown area within the city (the easternmost sector was closed in 2015). From the west are Lake Ontario State Parkway, NY-531 and I-490; Interstate 390 feeds from the south; and NY-104, NY-441, and I-490 approach from the east.
  In 2016, the City of Rochester launched the Pace Car Program. "Pace Car drivers sign a pledge to drive within the speed limit, drive courteously, yield to pedestrians and be mindful of bicyclists and others on the street."
caption: Main Street looking east
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