New York

[empirestate]

Something I didn't notice until I was looking at an aerial / topo today: https://historicaerials.com/location/42.413746086522806/-73.54805946350098/1971/16

The Taconic State Parkway had obvious stubs for an extension north for years.

Oh yeah; they're still pretty obvious.

[froggie]

Steve Anderson's site (once I finally got past its ads forever-loading) mentions the extension up to at least US 20, with some maps suggesting the NY 22/NY 67 vicinity or even the Canadian border as a previously-proposed terminus.  I haven't seen any of these maps, however.

[okc1]

I remember as a teen (around 1970) that the TSP would be extended to US 4 at Whitehall if a state bond was passed.

[cl94]

Steve Anderson's site (once I finally got past its ads forever-loading) mentions the extension up to at least US 20, with some maps suggesting the NY 22/NY 67 vicinity or even the Canadian border as a previously-proposed terminus.  I haven't seen any of these maps, however.

I haven't seen anything detailed, but it is known that I-90 was originally supposed to parallel US 20 from Schodack Center to Lee via New Lebanon and Pittsfield, bypassing the Berkshire Spur entirely and entering the Mass Pike near Exit 2. Various Congressional documents reference this and it was canceled due to cost ("why do we need two parallel expressways?"). My guess is that the Taconic extension would have ended no further south than here.

I remember as a teen (around 1970) that the TSP would be extended to US 4 at Whitehall if a state bond was passed.

I have seen mentions of this, cannot confirm it myself. It would help explain why the US 4 expressway ends at the NY/VT border, as the Taconic extension would have likely been related.

[Roadgeek Adam]

The Taconic (Eastern State Parkway) was supposed to go all the way north if memory serves me. However, after a while it was drawn back to Hoosick Falls (67) before being outright canned.

[froggie]

I have seen mentions of this, cannot confirm it myself. It would help explain why the US 4 expressway ends at the NY/VT border, as the Taconic extension would have likely been related.

Actually, that US 4 expressway was built in conjunction with the proposed "Central Corridor" for what some call the "I-92" proposal.

[cl94]

I have seen mentions of this, cannot confirm it myself. It would help explain why the US 4 expressway ends at the NY/VT border, as the Taconic extension would have likely been related.

Actually, that US 4 expressway was built in conjunction with the proposed "Central Corridor" for what some call the "I-92" proposal.

I am well aware of I-92. I was more wondering if the NY section of it would have been tied to a Taconic extension as a means of getting traffic to it.

[Buffaboy]

An FYA is in place at Delaware and Kenmore Aves in Buffalo...People won't know what it means, either.

I wonder why all of the latest traffic enhancements and technologies come to this state later. From what I understand, FYAs have been around for a number of years, right?

[SectorZ]

An FYA is in place at Delaware and Kenmore Aves in Buffalo...People won't know what it means, either.

I wonder why all of the latest traffic enhancements and technologies come to this state later. From what I understand, FYAs have been around for a number of years, right?

Rolled out for over a year to your east in Massachusetts. Oddly enough the first test in Mass was close to NY, on US 7/20 in Lenox, MA.

[cl94]

Parts of NY have had FYAs for years. Region 4 has had them for few years now, Region 1 has been installing them exclusively for almost 2 years. Regions 3, 5, 8 and 9 have been the big holdouts (even though 9 has the state's test case).

[Bumppoman]

Parts of NY have had FYAs for years. Region 4 has had them for few years now, Region 1 has been installing them exclusively for almost 2 years. Regions 3, 5, 8 and 9 have been the big holdouts (even though 9 has the state's test case).

They're all over Region 9 at this point.  I've seen them in Broome, Tioga, Chenango, and Otsego Counties.

[seicer]

What is a FYA?

[hotdogPi]

What is a FYA?

Flashing Yellow Arrow. Usually a left turn arrow, but a few right turn arrows exist in this form.

[cl94]

Parts of NY have had FYAs for years. Region 4 has had them for few years now, Region 1 has been installing them exclusively for almost 2 years. Regions 3, 5, 8 and 9 have been the big holdouts (even though 9 has the state's test case).

They're all over Region 9 at this point.  I've seen them in Broome, Tioga, Chenango, and Otsego Counties.

That must be recent. R9 was still installing bimodals until pretty recently and I have not personally seen them outside of downtown Binghamton (of course, that doesn't mean they don't exist, but I clinched most of R9 within the last year).

[Michael]

The first (and possibly only so far) FYA I've ever seen is this one near Binghamton.  I was last there in spring of 2015, so it's been there since at least then.

[SignBridge]

Region-10 on Long Island was slow to adopt it but has now installed a number of them.

[baugh17]

Parts of NY have had FYAs for years. Region 4 has had them for few years now, Region 1 has been installing them exclusively for almost 2 years. Regions 3, 5, 8 and 9 have been the big holdouts (even though 9 has the state's test case).

Region 2 has been adding more FYAs recently.  In the past month or so, FYAs have been activated in Little Falls (NY 5 east at NY 167 south) and Whitesboro (NY 69 in front of Whitesboro Middle School).

[Buffaboy]

So they're making headway, but I have yet to see one in action, anywhere.

I don't think I've ever seen a ramp meter in person, either. And I probably don't want to.

[storm2k]

Parts of NY have had FYAs for years. Region 4 has had them for few years now, Region 1 has been installing them exclusively for almost 2 years. Regions 3, 5, 8 and 9 have been the big holdouts (even though 9 has the state's test case).

Region 2 has been adding more FYAs recently.  In the past month or so, FYAs have been activated in Little Falls (NY 5 east at NY 167 south) and Whitesboro (NY 69 in front of Whitesboro Middle School).

The city is apparently in love with them. I've seen them all over Manhattan, especially in congested areas, such as several intersections leading to the Lincoln Tunnel.

[Bumppoman]

Parts of NY have had FYAs for years. Region 4 has had them for few years now, Region 1 has been installing them exclusively for almost 2 years. Regions 3, 5, 8 and 9 have been the big holdouts (even though 9 has the state's test case).

They're all over Region 9 at this point.  I've seen them in Broome, Tioga, Chenango, and Otsego Counties.

That must be recent. R9 was still installing bimodals until pretty recently and I have not personally seen them outside of downtown Binghamton (of course, that doesn't mean they don't exist, but I clinched most of R9 within the last year).

Aside from the one Michael linked, the other one I can pinpoint is at NY-96 and Talcott St. in Owego.  I know I've seen a couple others traveling but can't quite remember where.

[SignBridge]

Re: their use in NYC, they've apparently found some creative applications for FYA's other than the original intended use, including protecting pedestrians in crosswalks and bicyclists in bike lanes from turning vehicles.

[cl94]

Re: their use in NYC, they've apparently found some creative applications for FYA's other than the original intended use, including protecting pedestrians in crosswalks and bicyclists in bike lanes from turning vehicles.

That is one of the uses listed in the MUTCD (Figure 4D-20). One of the MUTCD uses of FYAs, particularly the right turn ones, is to protect bikes/peds.

[SignBridge]

Good point cl94. I have to admit I hadn't paid much attention to the Manual's sections re: right-turn FYA's. As I understood it the original purpose of the FYA to substitute for the green-ball in Dallas Phasing. But yes, it has found wider application as in the figure you noted.

[J N Winkler]

This is a bit meta, but I have just updated my NYSDOT construction plan downloader to take account of bid opening dates so that it marks down D-numbers for skipping after their bid opening dates have passed.

When I coded the original version of the downloader in 2013, soon after NYSDOT started systematically uploading plans and proposals to the Web, I didn't bother to block out past projects because at that time it was not clear whether NYSDOT would try to retain them online (as, e.g., Caltrans, Illinois DOT, and PennDOT do), or would simply sweep them off the Web once enough time had passed since bids were opened.  Up until about 2015 or so, NYSDOT did remove old projects, but as I write there is now what appears to be a complete archive of advertised projects back to April 2015.

As NYSDOT has added projects over the past couple of years, the time required to obtain a complete listing of documents for each project has increased, especially in the past few months.  At the end of 2015, it took 11 minutes to obtain all URLs for approximately 225 projects.  At the end of 2016, it took 24 minutes to obtain all URLs for approximately 483 projects.  The last run before script revision, a week ago tomorrow, took 2 hours 10 minutes to obtain all URLs for approximately 677 projects.  This is hockey-stick progression from about 3 seconds per project in 2015 and 2016 to approximately 12 seconds per project now.

I cannot completely eliminate causes local to me such as network congestion or memory leaks (possibly due to software bugs) that slow down findstr, which the script runs to extract URLs and block out old URLs from a given D-number listing before moving on to the next listing.  Nevertheless, it would not surprise me if NYSDOT's online plans and proposals have reached a breakout point in popularity (!), with consequent load on NYSDOT's servers.  The new script should zero in on just the ten or twenty projects that NYSDOT has under advertisement at any given time, and thus finish much more quickly while further limiting server load to downloading of fresh documents.

[Michael]

JN, where did you find the archived plans?  I only saw the current plans.

While reading recent press releases, I found a list of FYA locations in this press release.  I forgot about the one at the ramp to NY 481 from Soule Road!  I saw it active on November 6th of last year (thanks Facebook chat history!).