East of Watertown, the route traverses mostly rural terrain and serves only small villages, such as Potsdam, Malone, and Champlain.

[3] US 11 remains four lanes, now undivided, as it enters the city of Binghamton, serving as the main thoroughfare of the East Side neighborhood.

It exits downtown via North Main into a primarily residential area, passing the Guthrie Cortland Medical Center.

US 11 crosses to the east side of I-81 as it leaves the village, passing through a rural area toward the hamlet of Tully Center.

In this hamlet, US 11 briefly turns west along a concurrency with NY 80, during which it passes Tully Junior Senior High School.

It then enters Nedrow, which marks the beginning of the southern suburbs of Syracuse in the town of Onondaga, where NY 11A again meets US 11 at the former's northern terminus.

The highway follows Salina Street through most of Syracuse and its southern suburbs, passing through residential areas with occasional commercial stretches until reaching downtown.

It intersects NY 173 in the North Valley neighborhood, then passes through Brighton, where the surroundings remain largely residential with some businesses and churches.

The route then turns north-northeastward on Wolf Street, which it follows through the remainder of Washington Square and into the northern suburbs of Syracuse.

As it enters the hamlet of Mattydale, US 11 crosses under the New York State Thruway (I-90) and its name changes from Wolf Street to Brewerton Road.

US 11 heads northeast from Watertown, passing north of the Adirondack Park and serving several communities—such as the villages of Canton, Malone, and Potsdam—built up along its northern edge.

Although the road never crosses the Blue Line delimiting the Adirondack Park, it passes through mostly rural, undeveloped areas nonetheless.

After US 11 passes through Calcium, it parallels the western boundary of Fort Drum, whose main gate is just east of the highway's junction with I-781.

Past Fort Drum, the route follows a northeasterly routing across northern Jefferson County and southwestern St. Lawrence County, serving the villages of Evans Mills, Philadelphia, Antwerp, Gouverneur, and Richville and overlapping with NY 26 between Evans Mills and Philadelphia and with NY 812 for several miles north from Gouverneur.

At the next village, Potsdam, the highway becomes four lanes and runs along the northern edge of Clarkson University's campus as Maple Street before crossing the Raquette River via a divided alignment known as Sandstone Drive, where it intersects the southern terminus of NY 345 and is paralleled by a railroad bridge.

(The former alignment of US 11, the eastern portion of Maple Street, follows a concrete arch bridge over the river south of the current crossing.

NY 11B heads due east from Potsdam on Elm Street while US 11 exits to the northeast via Lawrence Avenue.

About 10 miles (16 km) northeast of Potsdam, US 11 intersects the west end of NY 11C, the northernmost of its three alternate routes in New York.

While NY 11C heads to the northeast to reach the hamlets of Brasher Falls and Winthrop, US 11 turns to the east, bypassing both locations to the south.

The highway soon enters Franklin County, where it intersects NY 95 in the hamlet of Moira and continues to the village of Brushton, where its alignment is known as Washington Street.

East of Malone, US 11 takes on a more northerly heading for roughly 15 miles (24 km), passing through Chateaugay and intersecting NY 374 in the community's center.

Eventually, it curves back to the southeast, serving Ellenburg and NY 190 before resuming a northeasterly alignment that takes the route through Mooers and into the village of Champlain.

US 11 turns north onto Lake Street at the junction, following the routing established by NY 9B to the south into the heart of Rouses Point.

[12] US 11 was realigned c. 1962 to follow a direct east–west highway between the hamlet of Twin Bridges (the modern junction of US 11 and Perry Mills Road) and the village of Champlain.

[citation needed] A study called the North Country Transportation Study Action Plan and Final Technical Report suggests that the road would likely be built to Interstate Highway standards in order to improve constrained transit systems due to a lack of infrastructure throughout the area.

The Northern Corridor Transportation Group (NCTG) was formed in December 2008 as a means of refocusing the 50-year discussion on the project.

Since that time, more than 100 municipal and civic resolutions from the five northern counties of New York have been passed in support of the construction of the project.

Senator Kirsten Gillibrand to direct $800 million (equivalent to $1.1 billion in 2023[26]) toward the project as part of the reauthorization of a federal highway transportation bill.

In a historic move, the six northern legislators representing the North Country in the New York State Legislature (Senators Darrel Aubertine, Joseph Griffo, and Betty Little and Assembly Members Dede Scozzafava, Addie Jenne, and Janet Duprey) signed an official letter of request to the same end.

While Commissioner McDonald was receptive to the idea of the highway, she announced that the DOT likely wouldn't pursue the project based on traffic studies that had performed in 2002 and 2006.