Construction of the US 219 freeway south of Buffalo, known as the Southern Expressway, began in the early 1970s with the first segment opened to traffic in 1971. By 1981, it extended to Springville, with the former alignments of US 219 mostly transferred to Erie County (a part of the route became NY 391). The freeway ended at a stub interchange with NY 39, and the end remained there for a couple decades.
The freeway is proposed to extend to I-86 in Salamanca, and designated as part of "Continental 1", a proposed freeway corridor extending from Miami to Canada. Upgrade efforts are currently underway across Pennsylvania. In New York, the proposal to uprade US 219 between Springville and Salamanca resulted in an extension of the freeway south to Peters Road in 2010; the former roadway was transferred to Erie and Cattaraugus Counties. The majority of the information here, including the images, is from the US 219 Planning Study conducted by Southern Tier West.
After the completion of the Peters Road extension, the project stagnated due to lack of funding, and at this point has been postponed indefinately, with poor chances of being completed. Nevertheless, efforts on the part of the local municipalities to push for the freeway's completion have continued. The current hope is to secure funding for the project's environmental impact statement and start construction from the Salamanca end, in contrast to the state's approach of continuing the extensions south from the Buffalo end.
The highway currently ends at the first proposed interchange, with a stub at Peters Road in Ashford.
The second proposed interchange is with Snake Run Road, at the hamlet of Ashford Hollow. The next project to complete US 219 was proposed to extend the freeway from Peters Road to this interchange.
The third proposed interchange is with NY 242 three miles east of the Village of Ellicottville.
The fourth proposed interchange would serve the Town of Great Valley at a realigned Humphrey Road (Cattaraugus CR 18).
The fifth proposed interchange would build a short connector road to current US 219 at the site of a former rail yard in the vicinity of the City of Salamanca.
The freeway would terminate at a diamond interchange (due to a compromise with the Seneca Nation) with I-86. The area south of the interchange would be used as a gateway to Allegany State Park.
Upgrade History
The images below have been obtained from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Eros Archive and Google Earth.
The first section of the US 219 freeway opened in 1971 from US 20A to the Thruway. The images above are from 1972 (top, USGS) and 2018 (bottom, Google).
The US 219 freeway was extended south to Armor Duells Road in 1975 and NY 391 in 1976. The extension to NY 39 in Springville opened in 1981. This served as the end of the freeway for many years, until it was extended again in 2010. The images above are from 2005 (top, Google/USDA/FPAC/GEO) and 2019 (bottom, Google).
The US 219 freeway was extended to Peters Road in 2010 and has a stub for potential further expansion. The image above is from 2019 (Google).