U.S. Route 202 in New York

The left turn that brings US 202 into New York and the village of Suffern puts it on Orange Avenue, paralleling the old Main Line of the Erie Railroad past the Suffern train station and into the village's downtown. In the shadow of the New York State Thruway, it meets its first New York state highway, NY 59, and has a brief wrong-way concurrency with it.

US 202's first reassurance shield after entering New York in Suffern.

Leaving Suffern behind to return to the northeastern heading it had followed across New Jersey, it crosses under the Thruway without an interchange, the end of a close parallel with Interstate 287 (I-287) that began north of Somerville, New Jersey. It remains a two-lane route at the edge of development past Pomona and Montebello, at the foot of the Ramapo Mountains, home to the vast Harriman State Park. The headwaters of the Mahwah River parallel closely.

At Ladentown, the northern terminus of NY 306, the road begins to curve to the east, away from the ridge. US 202 widens as it cuts across the county, still a little less developed here, towards Mount Ivy, where it has a full exit with Palisades Interstate Parkway and NY 45. The Long Path hiking trail also crosses here. Beyond this junction US 202 is a four-lane undivided road, surrounded mainly by office parks and commercial establishments, but not strip development, as it follows the curve of South Mountain to the south.

US 6 and US 202 cross the Bear Mountain Bridge between Orange and Westchester counties.

Development starts to increase in West Haverstraw, and at Haverstraw, the road makes an oblique intersection with US 9W and joins it, following the Hudson River north through Stony Point and then climbing the mountains near Jones Point and Bear Mountain State Park, descending to the river's level again to reach the popular picnic ground complex at Hessian Lake. Here the Appalachian Trail (AT) crosses under the road to its lowest elevation in the nearby Trailside Zoo.

After ten miles (16 km), the US 9W concurrency comes to an end at Bear Mountain Circle, shortly after crossing into Orange County, also the Palisades Parkway's north end. US 6 replaces US 9W as the two join the AT in going through the tollbooths and crossing the Bear Mountain Bridge, entering Cortlandt in Westchester County, just south of the Putnam County line. Both US 6 and US 202 will enter Putnam County later in their routes, but for now they veer southeast, staying in Westchester.

In most of northern Westchester, US 202, primarily as part of concurrencies, serves as a local road between the towns it passes through. It skirts the one Putnam County village along its path, and is mostly a rural road in that county, expanded to four lines at its easternmost portion.

At the end of the bridge the AT leaves with NY 9D, which begins to follow the river north to Beacon and Wappingers Falls here. Routes 6 and 202 turn right to follow the NRHP-listed Bear Mountain Bridge Road.[4] The two wind around Anthony's Nose high above the river, with occasional views to Haverstraw Bay and the city of Peekskill to the south, and Dunderberg Mountain, Iona Island and the sections of US 9W the highway had just followed upriver.

Mountains along US 9W and US 202 north of Stony Point.

Three and a half miles (6 km) US 6 and US 202 descend to river level again and, after passing the entrance to the New York National Guard base at Camp Smith, reach Annsville Circle. Here they form New York's only three-way concurrency of U.S. highways with US 9, then cross the Jans Peeck Bridge over Annsville Creek into the city and turn right onto the north end of the Croton Expressway, while Bear Mountain Parkway begins to the east. At the second exit in Peekskill, the two routes leave US 9. NY 35 begins here and replaces it in the overlap, following Main Street across the city. At South Broad Street US 202 and NY 35 turn right while US 6 continues along Main, ending the first overlap between US 6 and US 202.

A few blocks to the south, US 202 and NY 35 turn left onto Crompond Road, which takes them out of Peekskill and back into the town of Cortlandt. The two roads pass the Hudson Valley Hospital Center. Two miles later, Bear Mountain Parkway returns to US 202 for the eastern terminus of its western segment. Shortly afterwards it and Route 35 enter Yorktown.

Here the road trends to the south, and the eastern segment of Bear Mountain Parkway branches off to the left to provide access to the Taconic State Parkway, the main north–south trunk route for automobile traffic on the east side of the Hudson. An exit here allows access to neighboring Franklin D. Roosevelt State Park.

Much of US 6 and US 202 from the bridge to US 9 winds sharply around Anthony's Nose.

NY 132, a short local road that leads north to Route 6, begins at Old Yorktown Road. After the next major intersection at Granite Springs Road, the concurrency turns to an almost due south heading for two miles (3 km), then bends southeast into the junction with Saw Mill River Road, NY 118. Both routes turn north here, forming the third three-route overlap along US 202 in New York.

The north heading becomes northeast, then east into the town of Somers to where NY 35 leaves US 202 and NY 118 at the southwest end of Amawalk Reservoir, the first of several in the New York City water supply system along the road. US 202 and NY 118 turn left onto Tomahawk Street, closely hugging the reservoir's north shore, and then east shore after two miles (3 km), putting the road on a northern course. After crossing a small inlet at the reservoir's northwest corner, US 202 turns right, leaving NY 118. For the first time since Haverstraw, 38 miles (61 km) back, US 202 is alone, as it stays along the reservoir, heading northeast, then east, dipping south after the reservoir to pass north of Anglebrook Golf Club.

The Elephant Hotel, at the junction of US 202 and NY 100.

At the club's northeast corner, it turns left, as Primrose Street, the road ahead, continues as NY 139. After a mile, it turns right onto Mill Street, which becomes Somers Road shortly afterwards and curves to the south. At Brick Hill Road, it turns to a more northeast heading again, then east. This takes it into the center of town, where NY 100, Westchester's long north–south road, comes to its northern end just opposite the Elephant Hotel, Somers' town hall and a National Historic Landmark due to its role as the birthplace of the American circus.

Now Somerstown Road, the highway resumes a due-northeast heading to where NY 116 forks off to the east towards Titicus Reservoir. After this split, US 202 is now North Somerstown Road, headed northeast through generally wooded areas almost two miles (3 km) to the Croton River, where it enters a new town, North Salem. Here it forms its first concurrency in seven miles (11 km), joining with NY 22, the long north–south route along New York's eastern boundary, just north of the hamlet of Croton Falls. After crossing under the Harlem Line of the Metro-North Railroad, the two roads enter Putnam County.

Spillway at East Branch Reservoir

Routes 202 and 22 parallel the river and the railroad through similarly wooded country due northeast for the next two miles (3 km), with no intersections. The spillway of the lower section of East Branch Reservoir appears on the right, and then the road follows the reservoir in the same direction to the eastern outskirts of the village of Brewster. Here US 6 returns and gives US 202 its fourth three-way concurrency. Routes 6, 22 and 202 climb a small rise, cross under a rail freight spur and then pass through a developed area immediately south of the high quarter-mile bridge I-84 takes over the road and the river.

Just afterwards, the three routes turn left. The three-way overlap ends very soon afterwards at the next traffic light, where NY 22 turns left to pick up northbound traffic from I-684, which ends at the nearby junction with its parent route. The ramps to I-84 and I-684 also leave here.

The road ahead bends south and then east, a four-lane divided road making use of the thin land between I-84 and the northern section of East Branch. There is one flashing yellow light, at the northern terminus of NY 121, and then two miles (3 km) later, still next to the interstate, US 6 and US 202 cross into Danbury, Connecticut alongside it just before the Saw Mill Road exit.