page_title: New York State Route 590
section_title: Project origins
hierarchical_section_title: New York State Route 590 / History / Sea Breeze Drive / Project origins
caption_attribution_description: English: The completed new alignment of Sea Breeze Drive (former New York State Route 590) in May 2010. In the background is what was once the pre-Sea Breeze Drive alignment of NY 590; in the foreground is Culver Road.
context_page_description: New York State Route 590 is a 4.98-mile north–south state highway located in the eastern suburbs of Rochester, New York, in the United States. The route is a limited-access northward extension of Interstate 590 that begins at the Can of Worms, an interchange between I-490, I-590, and NY 590 on the boundary between the town of Brighton and the city of Rochester, and ends at a roundabout with Titus Avenue in the town of Irondequoit. NY 590 is known as the Sea Breeze Expressway, a name derived from the small community of Sea Breeze located near the highway's former northern terminus at Culver Road near the southern shore of Lake Ontario.
  The portion of NY 590 between the Can of Worms and NY 104 is part of the northeastern quadrant of the Rochester Outer Loop, a series of expressways that form a beltway around the city of Rochester. At NY 104, the Outer Loop turns west to follow NY 104 through Irondequoit. The Sea Breeze Expressway was built in stages from the 1950s to the 1960s and carried various designations until 1970, when the entirety of the Rochester – Sea Breeze highway was designated as part of NY 47. It was redesignated as NY 590 in 1980.
context_section_description: In 1995, Irondequoit Town Supervisor David Schantz proposed the idea of converting the portion of NY 590 north of Titus Avenue into a parkway that would serve as a "gateway" into Irondequoit. He presented the idea to Jim Walsh, the United States Representative representing Irondequoit, who later secured $8 million from the federal government for the project. Another $4.5 million of funding was also devoted to the project from the state of New York. Planning for the project began in mid-2004. In late 2006, the Irondeqout Town Board chose a configuration calling for the number of lanes on NY 590 to be reduced to two and for four intersections to be replaced with roundabouts as its "preferred alternative".
  The final project design was presented on February 6, 2008, in the last of five public meetings on the project. Under the plan, the section of NY 590 north of Titus Avenue would be reduced to a two-lane, 25-mile-per-hour (40 km/h) parkway and named "Sea Breeze Drive". Its signalized intersections with Titus Avenue, Durand Boulevard, and Seneca and Point Pleasant Roads would be converted into roundabouts as part of the reconstruction. Also, the portion of NY 590 north of Durand Boulevard would be realigned to meet Culver Road at a new intersection farther west along the lakeshore. The realignment would open up 3 acres (1.2 ha) of waterfront land along the shore of Irondequoit Bay that had previously been occupied by the expressway. The town of Irondequoit would then acquire the former right-of-way of NY 590 from the state of New York for future recreational uses in a transaction that would officially cost the town $1.
  Public opinion on the proposed project was split. Many residents supported the project, stating it would improve the safety of the highway; however, others believed that the reduction in lanes would result in increased traffic on Culver Road, which runs parallel to NY 590 through Irondequoit, and that the roundabouts would make navigating the highway difficult.
caption: The new alignment of Sea Breeze Drive, in July 2009 (top) and May 2010 (bottom), looking south-southeast from Culver Road. The existing NY 590 alignment is in the background.
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