Lake Colby Drive begins where Broadway — heading north — splits in two at about Keene Street. The left fork became (new) Lake Colby Drive, part of New York Route 86, and the right fork, as a continuation of Broadway, is now also called Upper Broadway or Old Lake Colby Road. Lake Colby Drive was built in 1953 on the abandoned right-of-way of the Mohawk & Malone railroad, which explains why it is straighter and flatter than most roads in the Saranac Lake vicinity. Most of the buildings are newer, for commercial or industrial use, with the exception of the Saranac Lake Baptist Church at 490 Broadway, and the Adirondack Medical Center. Since the road passes close to the east side of Lake Colby, where recent attention has been paid to road salt run-off into the lake, almost all the buildings on Lake Colby Drive are located on the east side, across the road from the lake.
