Black River and followed the Black River north to Pearl Street, where it met its old routing. NY 181, which NY 26 overlapped between Calcium and Black River, was renumbered to NY 342 around this time. The Southern Tier Expressway (NY 17) was open from Vestal to Johnson City, but was not slated to become part of NY 17 until the segment of the expressway from Johnson City to I-81 was completed. As a result, NY 17 exited the expressway at Vestal, overlapped NY 26 south to Vestal Parkway (modern NY 434), and then followed it into downtown Binghamton. The Johnson City–I-81 piece of the expressway was completed and opened to traffic by 1973. At this time the overlap was eliminated, and NY 17 was realigned to follow the expressway while NY 17's former routing from Vestal to Binghamton became an extension of NY 434 on July 1, 1974. Like the NY 17 realignment, the NY 434 extension had been planned years before. Truncation and re-extension Following the 1950s realignment, NY 26 overlapped with other routes for in Jefferson County, 65 percent of the route's alignment through the county. In 1975, officials from NYSDOT Region 7 proposed a pair of designation changes to eliminate most of the overlaps. NY 26 would be truncated to end at NY 3 and NY 26A in Carthage, and its former routing from Antwerp to Alexandria Bay would be redesignated as NY 283. Both suggestions were implemented by 1977. The changes were rendered moot on August 1, 1979, as ownership and maintenance of the portions of NY 283 from US 11 in Antwerp to NY 411 in Theresa and from LaFargeville Road in Theresa to NY 37 west of the village was transferred from the state of New York to Jefferson County as part of a highway maintenance swap between the two levels of government. In return, the state acquired the county-maintained LaFargeville Road from NY 37 to NY 283 and a series of county roads (Broad and Martin streets and Great Bend and Fort Drum roads) connecting West Carthage to Evans Mills. NY 26 was subsequently rerouted to follow the new West Carthage–Evans Mills state highway to US 11 near Evans Mills. It overlapped with US 11 from there to Philadelphia before continuing to Theresa on former NY 411. The route exited Theresa on LaFargeville Road, and NY 26 used a short overlap with