New York State Route 36 (NY 36) is a north–south state highway in the western part of New York in the United States. The highway extends for from the Pennsylvania state line at Troupsburg, Steuben County northward to Ogden, Monroe County, where it ends at an intersection with NY 31. Along the way, NY 36 passes through the villages of Canisteo, Dansville, Mount Morris, Caledonia, and Churchville and the city of Hornell. The section of the route between Dansville and Mount Morris closely parallels Interstate 390 (I-390); however, from Dansville south and Mount Morris north, NY 36 serves as a regionally important highway, connecting to I-86, U.S. Route 20A (US 20A), US 20, and I-490 as it heads north. At its south end, NY 36 connects to Pennsylvania Route 249 (PA 249).
The origins of NY 36 date back to 1908 when most of modern NY 36 between Jasper and Mumford was assigned a legislative route designation by the New York State Legislature. NY 36 was assigned in the mid-1920s to an alignment extending from Hornell north to Avon, utilizing its modern alignment south of Mount Morris and what is now NY 63 and NY 39 from Mount Morris to Avon. It was truncated in 1927 to end in Geneseo, but was subsequently realigned and extended as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York to continue north from Mount Morris to Ogden. NY 36 was extended again, this time southwestward to Andover, in the early 1940s, but was realigned just a decade later to continue southeast from Hornell to the Pennsylvania state line.
Route description
Steuben County
NY 36 begins at the Pennsylvania state line in Troupsburg, where it continues south into Pennsylvania as PA 249. Heading north from the state line in Steuben County, the route follows Troups Creek northward through rural Troupsburg on its way to the equally isolated town of Jasper, where it meets NY 417 at a junction west of the small hamlet of Jasper. NY 36 joins NY 417 here, following the east–west route to the western fringe of the community. At a T-intersection just outside the hamlet, the two routes split, with NY 417 turning to the right (eastward) toward Corning and NY 36 making a left-hand turn to continue northward toward the town of Canisteo. Across the town line, NY 36 turns toward the northwest and serves the hamlet of South Canisteo, which marks the southern end of both Colonel Hills Creek and a valley formed by the waterway.
The route continues generally northerly through the creek valley to the outskirts of the village of Canisteo, where the creek valley gives way to a larger one surrounding the nearby Canisteo River. At this point, NY 36 curves sharply to the northwest, passing over Colonel Hills and Bennetts Creeks prior to entering the village as Main Street. In the center of Canisteo, it intersects the northern terminus of NY 248. Past NY 248, the route leaves the village and continues northwest along the lightly populated banks of the Canisteo River to the city of Hornell, which NY 36 traverses by way of a divided highway built to bypass Hornell along its western edge. (Prior to construction of this arterial and the new Canisteo-Hornell route, NY 36 followed Dineen and McBurney Roads north of Canisteo, along an abandoned and unenlargeable stretch along the Canisteo River, entering Hornell via Canisteo Street.) NY 36 heads north through the residential southern half of the city to Hornell's commercial central district, the site of a junction with Main Street and NY 21.
For the next , NY 21 overlaps with NY 36, following it through Hornell's residential northern half, across the Canisteo River, and past pockets of development in the surrounding town of Hornellsville to a junction roughly south of NY 36's interchange with Interstate 86 (I-86) and NY 17. (Prior to the construction of the arterial, these routes ran along Seneca Street in Hornell and Seneca Road in North Hornell.) NY 21 breaks from NY 36 and proceeds to the northeast along an unnamed road; NY 36, however, continues along the bypass to I-86 and NY 17, where the two roads meet at I-86 and NY 17 exit 34 via a full cloverleaf interchange. Past the interchange, the divided highway narrows into a two-lane, undivided highway that continues through lightly populated areas of the town to the village of Arkport.