Making Route 219 in New York State a Safer Roadway

If you're looking for panoramic views of the peaks and valleys that make up the Enchanted Mountains in southwestern New York, take a drive on the 4.2 mile extension of U.S. Route 219, also known as the Southern Expressway, which opened in November 2010. The extension is a partial replacement of two-lane Route 219.

Stretching from Springville in Erie County to Ashford in Cattaraugus County, the extension is part of a long-term plan of Continental One, a multistate coalition of public and private partners that advocates for construction of a four-lane, limited access highway from Toronto to Miami. Completing about 20 miles of a four-lane highway from Springville to Interstate 86 near Salamanca in Cattaraugus County is the New York State portion of the route outlined by Continental One.

"A completed Route 219 will provide Western New York with a nationally significant north/south trade corridor connection from Toronto to Miami using 1,300 miles of interstate highways," says New York Senator Catherine Young. "And making Route 219 a safer roadway will save heartache and lives. Hundreds of people have been seriously injured or killed on Route 219 over the years."

Begun in 2007, the project extended the Southern Expressway from State Route 39 in Springville to a new interchange at Peters Road in Ashford. Construction involved 4.2 miles of four-lane divided highway and nine new bridges, including two, twin-arch steel bridges that each span more than 700 feet across the Cattaraugus Creek gorge. "Seven of the nine bridges are pretty much the same," says Ken King, Territory Sales Manager at Lake Ontario-US, Lafarge North America. "Two of the bridges are steel arches going over a deep, 200-foot gorge."

Lafarge SF cement was used in all the bridge decks and structures, says King. "SF cement is portland type 1 cement blended with micro silica, a very fine powder used to make concrete more dense and less permeable to salts, which improves durability. Type 1 [T-I], a normal portland for everyday concrete, was used to pave the roads."

Other aspects of the project include using the equivalent of 7.7 million shredded tires as embankment material, and creation of a 64-acre (25.9 hectares) off-site wetland complex in Ellicottville to mitigate the loss of wetlands from construction.