Best and worst states at building freeways

[Mergingtraffic]

CT is awful... they can't get it done....they just can't.  It's a vicious cycle, plans for a study, then another study, then there's no money, then there's no political will.

The last new expressway was US-7 north of Danbury, CT.  It was only extended 3 miles.

CT just can't get the widening of existing expressways started.  I-84 in the western half of the state, they've been trying for 18 years for the above cycle.  If they do widen it, it's usually half assed, or it's not widened enough to truly help congestion.   (I-95 South in West Haven comes to mind, the new 4th lane should go down to Exit 42, not 44)

[webny99]

It's not something I noticed when I was younger, but I ask myself why upstate NY cities like Buffalo, which in the 1950s had little growth beyond I-90/I-290, didn't do the same thing. Today, we are stuck with NY-78, "Transit Road," a 30 or so mile 4-6 lane surface highway which connects the city of Lockport with I-90 and the "Southtowns."

I despise Transit Road.  I have used it many times when visiting friends in the area around East Aurora.

Transit Road is a Buffalo specialty. Rochester and Syracuse don't really have an equivalent.

We can complain all we want (and we will, trust me!) but we know nothing about the traffic that people in big cities deal with all the time. If anything, upstate cities are examples of cities with excellent planning in early years, but irregular and unexpected pockets of growth causing congestion to pop up here and there. Any congestion problems we have are specific to a single location or corridor; nothing like the chronic and system-wide oversaturation of the road network seen in LA, San Fran, and NYC.

[ipeters61]

It's not something I noticed when I was younger, but I ask myself why upstate NY cities like Buffalo, which in the 1950s had little growth beyond I-90/I-290, didn't do the same thing. Today, we are stuck with NY-78, "Transit Road," a 30 or so mile 4-6 lane surface highway which connects the city of Lockport with I-90 and the "Southtowns."

I despise Transit Road.  I have used it many times when visiting friends in the area around East Aurora.

Transit Road is a Buffalo specialty. Rochester and Syracuse don't really have an equivalent.

We can complain all we want (and we will, trust me!) but we know nothing about the traffic that people in big cities deal with all the time. If anything, upstate cities are examples of cities with excellent planning in early years, but irregular and unexpected pockets of growth causing congestion to pop up here and there. Any congestion problems we have are specific to a single location or corridor; nothing like the chronic and system-wide oversaturation of the road network seen in LA, San Fran, and NYC.

That's a fair point.  Philadelphia people (on the PA and NJ side) seem to think Delaware traffic is a joke.  While I've only driven through Wilmington during rush hour a handful of times, I always was reasonably able to get out of it (when I lived in Newark, I would take US-13 South to DE-273 West to DE-58 West to DE-4 West and usually getting to Newark was less painful that way instead of I-95, although with all the lights it took about 45 minutes instead of the 25 minutes it took taking I-95...outside of rush hour).

Anyway, my point is that PA's roads in the Philly area are absolutely terrible.  There are very few expressways, with several heavily congested two-lane roads that pass for arterials around there.  Can't really speak for New Jersey simply because I rarely would go there, but when I'd drive on I-295 to visit family on the PA/NJ line, 295 was incredibly stressful.  Delaware only has a handful of bad areas for traffic.  When I commuted Newark to Dover everyday for my first two months working for Highway Safety, I never had traffic issues.  It took 45 minutes to 1 hour to drive 45 miles.