As it does in other states, US 202 serves mainly as a local road in suburban and exurban communities along the outskirts of the metropolitan area, mostly two lanes with the exception of some four-lane sections and a brief concurrency onto a freeway in Peekskill.

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.

US 202 widens as it cuts across the county, still a little less developed here, towards Mount Ivy, where it has a full interchange with the Palisades Interstate Parkway and NY 45.

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.

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.

[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.

Three and a half miles (5.6 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 the Bear Mountain Parkway begins to the east.

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.

At the club's northeast corner, it turns left, as Primrose Street, the road ahead, continues as NY 139.

Now called Somerstown Turnpike, the highway resumes a due-northeast heading to where NY 116 forks off to the east towards Titicus Reservoir.

After this split, US 202 heads 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.

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.

Routes 6, 22 and 202 climb a small rise, cross under the Beacon Line and Maybrook Trailway and then pass through a developed area immediately south of the high quarter-mile bridge I-84 takes over the road and the river.

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.

When the first set of posted routes in New York were assigned in 1924, the segment of what is now US 202 from the New Jersey state line to Wayne Avenue in Suffern was designated as part of NY 17.

[7][9] The last remaining unnumbered section—between Peekskill and Croton Falls—received a pair of designations as part of the 1930 renumbering of state highways in New York.