In terms of Erie Canal, didn't Buffalo have a bigger slice of the pie? Rochester isn't even really on the canal. Buffalo still has enormous artifacts of the canal industry, like the grain silos.
And are you kidding?? The Erie Canal ran right through the city (likewise Syracuse, Utica, etc) and crossed the Genesee river on an old aqueduct that is still there today and interestingly carried the short lived Rochester subway. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Street_Bridge_(Rochest.... The Canal put those places on the map and the New York Central maintained them there heading into the 20th century.
The Erie Canal was replaced by the New York Barge canal system which avoided the cities other than NYC and was ironically much larger than the Erie Canal though eclipsed by the railroads in fame by that point. Numerous sections in Western NY such as through Pittsford reused the Erie.
https://www.cityofrochester.gov/eriecanal/
Part of one of the expressways, I490, runs through downtown and still has some of the old canal locks next to it as the expressway approaches downtown.