If you've watched news coverage from Buffalo during the lake effect snow storm and heard about highways being shut down, perhaps you notice that news anchors will say something like this, "The 90 is closed between Rochester and Dunkirk." Did that sound strange to your ear? Here's why.

The local parlance in Western New York is to refer to interstates and other major numbered highways as "the 90" or "the 33." The general usage is to refer to a highway such as Interstate 90 as I-90 or just 90 and maybe Route 90. But Buffalo isn't alone in this usage. It's the standard in Los Angeles. Ever hear talk about bad traffic on "the 405?" Given that so much of our television and movie entertainment comes from Hollywood, it's interesting that more people don't refer to highways with the 'the-xx' usage. But they don't. Buffalo, this is something you can claim as all your own in New York state: the way you say the names of your highways is unique to you.

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