Interstate 81 in Syracuse

[Duke87]

Probably the Albany Skyway (removing the US 9 north ramp at I-787 and turning it into a park similar to NYC's high line), though there is desire among some advocates for a complete removal of I-787.

Maybe NY787 in Cohoes? It is in full swing...

I was referring to 787 in Cohoes, though the "Skyway" is also a valid example.

Does anyone think the people of Syracuse might unite to prevent the Community Grid from being constructed? Or, as I suspect, city residents will deliver a collective "meh" to this project, and the Community Grid will be constructed as proposed?

Not even a collective "meh". A majority of residents of the city proper support the "Community Grid" alternative. The opposition within the area generally comes from the suburbs.

Naturally, the people who use the viaduct want it to stay, while the people who live near it but don't derive much personal benefit from its presence want it gone.

[cu2010]

Of note is that the current I-81 will be redesignated as BL 81. Would be the first green Interstate shield in NY.

[Beltway]

Naturally, the people who use the viaduct want it to stay, while the people who live near it but don't derive much personal benefit from its presence want it gone.

Syracuse seems to be contemplating suicide, or sooee-cide, or stupid-kari.  Planning for a massive decline in population and employment.

Just the costs for demolition, building tie-ins to the existing highway truncations, and direct connections between I-81 and I-481, will be a substantial percentage of the costs for replacing the superstructure on the 0.9 mile bridge.

[Michael]

I saw an interesting comment on NewsChannel 9's Facebook post of their "before and after rendering" article:

Anyone been to Big Flats lately? It was a "community grid." Then I86 was elevated though. Why was that a good idea?????

I hadn't thought of comparing the two before!

I still think that it's silly to think of the bridge as a barrier that will magically dramatically improve the quality of life for Syracuse if it's removed.  I'm willing to consider that it may have some affect, but some comments I've read are from people that seem to think a huge miracle will happen if the bridge is removed.  As I've thought for years, and I think I mentioned before in this thread: Why can't a new bridge look something like the Zakim Bridge in Boston?  A cable-stayed design would only need two towers for the length of the current viaduct, the towers could straddle Almond Street, the deck could be a bit higher, and the bridge towers could be lit up in different colors for different events, seasons, etc.

Another "community grid" I hadn't thought of until today is the one-way couplet of NY 13/34/96 in Ithaca.  It can get pretty busy, but I can't recall ever being stuck in traffic there for too long.  Each side of the couplet has three lanes, and the TDV shows an AADT of 40,275 (the total of both directions) for the busiest section.  The difference is that I-81 has over twice that amount of cars.

[webny99]

The most major cancelled corridor is one I never need to use (but would be a glaring flaw for anyone trying to get between Greece and Webster).

I do have to travel between Greece and Webster every so often. 104 through Greece isn't great, but it is bearable; the lights are usually timed reasonably well, and at least the first 2/3 of the trip (or last, depending on your direction) is freeway.

I find Webster to Fairport much more annoying, because it's very slow moving and there's not even any four-lane through roads, much less a divided highway or a freeway. In fact, anything at all involving NY 250 tends to be frustrating, and the entire Pittsford - Fairport - East Rochester area is very clumsy to navigate. For Webster to Victor, I wouldn't even consider backroads; just hit the Bay Bridge > NY 590 > I-490 and deal with the extra mileage knowing how much time and exasperation will be saved.


Of course, I agree with the larger point that Rochester has it easy compared to many cities, Syracuse already being one of those, and all the more so if the viaduct really does go.

[webny99]

Come to think of it, the New York State Fair alone may be justification for rebuilding the viaduct. Fair traffic is bad enough as it is; I can't even imagine what it would be like with no viaduct, even with an optimal community grid.

Not to mention how much less accessible Destiny USA and SYR would become from points south; that's two entities I would imagine are very much against removal.

[kalvado]

Come to think of it, the New York State Fair alone may be justification for rebuilding the viaduct. Fair traffic is bad enough as it is; I can't even imagine what it would be like with no viaduct, even with an optimal community grid.

Not to mention how much less accessible Destiny USA and SYR would become from points south; that's two entities I would imagine are very much against removal.

State fair will be only moderately affected by viaduct removal. It only affects southern approach; and adds maybe 3 miles detour. Not critical for once a year long haul trip. Some ould reroute to Thruway. Spending billions on infrastructure for once a year event is also less than wise.
As for Destiny USA - yes, they will be affected, they are complaining, and yes, Onondaga county will be missing a lot of sales tax, Syracuse will loose lower level some jobs. I don't have too much sympathy here, Tompkins county for one should be winning as NYC now collects sales tax from online sales anyway.  Young people moving out of upstate also reduce traffic through the community grid.

[Beltway]

Why can't Syracuse do what Birmingham is doing --

ALDOT says I-59/20 construction is ahead of schedule and we've got the photos to prove it (photo gallery)
https://bhamnow.com/2019/04/05/aldot-i-59-20-construction/

[kalvado]

Why can't Syracuse do what Birmingham is doing --

ALDOT says I-59/20 construction is ahead of schedule and we've got the photos to prove it (photo gallery)
https://bhamnow.com/2019/04/05/aldot-i-59-20-construction/

Because the issue at hand is not a construction itself, it is about what exactly has to be built. That discussion is going on for at least a decade, and there no consensus about how to proceed, not even a hint of opinion convergence.

[webny99]

Come to think of it, the New York State Fair alone may be justification for rebuilding the viaduct. Fair traffic is bad enough as it is; I can't even imagine what it would be like with no viaduct, even with an optimal community grid.

State fair will be only moderately affected by viaduct removal. It only affects southern approach; and adds maybe 3 miles detour. Not critical for once a year long haul trip. Some ould reroute to Thruway. Spending billions on infrastructure for once a year event is also less than wise.

To be clear, I don't think the fair is the biggest reason to rebuild the viaduct, or even close to it, but it is certainly a major point in favor. I know if I was coming in to the fair from the south, I would plan on using the much shorter route via the community grid as opposed to using I-481. It doesn't take a very high percentage of fair traffic to make that decision to cause some pretty significant traffic issues.

[kalvado]

Come to think of it, the New York State Fair alone may be justification for rebuilding the viaduct. Fair traffic is bad enough as it is; I can't even imagine what it would be like with no viaduct, even with an optimal community grid.

State fair will be only moderately affected by viaduct removal. It only affects southern approach; and adds maybe 3 miles detour. Not critical for once a year long haul trip. Some ould reroute to Thruway. Spending billions on infrastructure for once a year event is also less than wise.

To be clear, I don't think the fair is the biggest reason to rebuild the viaduct, or even close to it, but it is certainly a major point in favor. I know if I was coming in to the fair from the south, I would plan on using the much shorter route via the community grid as opposed to using I-481. It doesn't take a very high percentage of fair traffic to make that decision to cause some pretty significant traffic issues.

And as they told you in other threads: you do not design for traffic which exists few days a year. 95% is a reasonable target; that means that 2 weeks a year a road can easily be inadequate for the volume - but you don't want to overbuild just for those events.

[webny99]

To be clear, I don't think the fair is the biggest reason to rebuild the viaduct, or even close to it, but it is certainly a major point in favor. I know if I was coming in to the fair from the south, I would plan on using the much shorter route via the community grid as opposed to using I-481. It doesn't take a very high percentage of fair traffic to make that decision to cause some pretty significant traffic issues.

And as they told you in other threads: you do not design for traffic which exists few days a year. 95% is a reasonable target; that means that 2 weeks a year a road can easily be inadequate for the volume - but you don't want to overbuild just for those events.

I never said the project should be designed a certain way just for the fair. It shouldn't be, of course; it should be designed to best fill the needs of normal traffic passing through the area. But nevertheless the fair is a point in favor of rebuilding the viaduct instead of creating a community grid, and that's obvious to me, so I would think it should be obvious to the state, as well.

[vdeane]

Come to think of it, the New York State Fair alone may be justification for rebuilding the viaduct. Fair traffic is bad enough as it is; I can't even imagine what it would be like with no viaduct, even with an optimal community grid.

Not to mention how much less accessible Destiny USA and SYR would become from points south; that's two entities I would imagine are very much against removal.

State fair will be only moderately affected by viaduct removal. It only affects southern approach; and adds maybe 3 miles detour. Not critical for once a year long haul trip. Some ould reroute to Thruway. Spending billions on infrastructure for once a year event is also less than wise.
As for Destiny USA - yes, they will be affected, they are complaining, and yes, Onondaga county will be missing a lot of sales tax, Syracuse will loose lower level some jobs. I don't have too much sympathy here, Tompkins county for one should be winning as NYC now collects sales tax from online sales anyway.  Young people moving out of upstate also reduce traffic through the community grid.

It's three miles on I-81 from exit 16A to I-690.  Taking I-481 and I-690 for that trip is 11 miles.  As such, there won't be any good all-freeway route from Binghamton to the Fair any more.

Why someone would take the Thruway to get to the Fair from any direction but east or west, I don't know.  It's a bit of a diversion.  This may be a side effect of growing up in Rochester, but I view the Thruway as being for long-distance traffic, not local traffic.

Of course, this point isn't just regarding the fair, but from anywhere south of Syracuse to/from the west.

Come to think of it, the New York State Fair alone may be justification for rebuilding the viaduct. Fair traffic is bad enough as it is; I can't even imagine what it would be like with no viaduct, even with an optimal community grid.

State fair will be only moderately affected by viaduct removal. It only affects southern approach; and adds maybe 3 miles detour. Not critical for once a year long haul trip. Some ould reroute to Thruway. Spending billions on infrastructure for once a year event is also less than wise.

To be clear, I don't think the fair is the biggest reason to rebuild the viaduct, or even close to it, but it is certainly a major point in favor. I know if I was coming in to the fair from the south, I would plan on using the much shorter route via the community grid as opposed to using I-481. It doesn't take a very high percentage of fair traffic to make that decision to cause some pretty significant traffic issues.

I for one am very glad I don't have to make that choice - privilege of living east of Syracuse, I guess.  On the one hand, I prefer to keep my routing "within the system" unless I'm clinching things (I tend to think of the interstate system on a separate and systemic level, but this happens for non-interstates too - I don't like swapping in and out of the state route system either, preferring to follow a local-county-state/US-interstate/freeway-state/US-county-local travel pattern).  On the other, making a significant diversion that triples the mileage between two points because some urbanists have become very influential doesn't sit well with me either.

[froggie]

This may be a side effect of growing up in Rochester, but I view the Thruway as being for long-distance traffic, not local traffic.

Keep in mind that the Thruway has 6 interchanges between I-690 and I-481 inclusive.  That's about one every 2-2.5 miles and far more frequent than what you have in the Rochester area.  There also isn't a whole lot of Rochester suburbia/exurbia south of the Thruway, but Syracuse has a lot of such north of the Thruway.

[webny99]

This may be a side effect of growing up in Rochester, but I view the Thruway as being for long-distance traffic, not local traffic.

Keep in mind that the Thruway has 6 interchanges between I-690 and I-481 inclusive.  That's about one every 2-2.5 miles and far more frequent than what you have in the Rochester area.  There also isn't a whole lot of Rochester suburbia/exurbia south of the Thruway, but Syracuse has a lot of such north of the Thruway.

I think it's a given that the Thruway has more local traffic (though still not a lot per se) near Syracuse than Rochester.
However, the point therein is that someone going from Binghamton to the state fair isn't going to use the Thruway, regardless of what happens with the I-81 viaduct.



A much broader question is what the overall impact of viaduct removal would be on traffic volumes on the Thruway. As someone who travels to the East Coast via Syracuse with some frequency, I see three basic options for if/when the viaduct is removed (not including I-390 > I-86, which avoids the Syracuse region altogether):

(1) Take the same route as current, using the new surface street where necessary. Shortest mileage and probably not a terrible option, especially at night, but nevertheless an annoying incongruity on a long-distance trip.
(2) Take I-690 to its current eastern terminus at I-481. Adds 8 miles and about as many minutes as compared to taking the existing viaduct. Probably the worst option, because you're basically taking three sides of a square instead of one, and you almost certainly lose more time than you would by slogging through the new grid.
(3) Take the Thruway all the way to I-481. Avoids downtown, avoids I-690, and doesn't feel quite as circular - or at least forms a larger circle - as compared to (2). Current time/distance from Thruway Exit 39 to the southern terminus of I-481 via the viaduct is 15 min/14 mi. Via the Thruway > I-481, time/distance is 24 min/25 mi. Also adds about 10 minutes, but with better opportunities for making up time and on (in general) less congested roadways.

Adding a Thruway exit at NY 173 would provide a fourth option; roughly this. I am not sure how much potential this corridor has to be a major south/west connector or how intense it would be to widen it to four lanes throughout.

[vdeane]

It's too bad it's no longer possible to build the western bypass as originally envisioned, since it require taking a small bite out of a Wegmans to build the EB on ramp.

[amroad17]

And moving a power substation.

Before the Camillus bypass was finished, we would, after visiting relatives in the Camillus area (Memphis, Elbridge, Jordan), have our route from there to the Hampton Roads area of Virginia involve taking NY 5 East (West Genesee Street) to NY 173 East to US 11 South to I-81 South at Exit 16.  Sure, we were driving on undivided four lane and two lane roads, however, we never had to deal with the downtown Syracuse traffic.  Now that NY 695 and the Camillus bypass is finished, one could leave the fairgrounds, head south on NY 695 to NY 5 East, make a right onto West Genesee, then a left onto NY 173 East to get to I-81 South to avoid whatever may be attempted in Syracuse.

This section of I-81 in Syracuse is most likely the worst section to have to decide something like this.  Many commuters rely on this section to go just about anywhere north and west of the Syracuse area from the south side of the city.  I believe that the section of I-81 north of I-690, if it had a viaduct, would not be as much of a problem as it is currently.  There would be ways to "go around" it.  There really isn't a good way to "go around" the Community Grid option or any reconstruction of the viaduct if that happens.

I would like to believe what ALDOT is building in Birmingham would work in Syracuse.  Unfortunately, I don 't believe it would,  The existing footprint is too small.  Besides, many citizens, especially those that live in and around the I-81 corridor in downtown Syracuse, would love to see the viaduct be torn down and not have another one built in its place.

This is one case where it is a fight between the city and the suburbs.  If I still lived in the area, I guess I would have more of a say in what is decided.  As it is, I can only voice my opinions from 600 miles away.

[Flyer78]

Adding a Thruway exit at NY 173 would provide a fourth option; roughly this. I am not sure how much potential this corridor has to be a major south/west connector or how intense it would be to widen it to four lanes throughout.

As someone who grew up with a Warners address, widening 173 would be an issue. Through the hamlet of Warners, properties are close to the road; and would have to cross the main east-west corridor on a widened bridge in "downtown Warners (aka The Bridge)" - This is an active corridor, with trains often every five minutes of both passenger and freight variety. The next several miles of 173 are signed for 35 MPH but that is laughable by most standards. Past Reed Webster Park in Amboy heading towards Fairmount, the speed drops to 30 MPH, and again housing stock aligns close-in to the right-of-way. Proceeding through the Westover tracts, a realigned 173 heads towards Fairmount Corners (the realignment was necessary to build the NY5 bypass) and crosses old 5, again, in constrained corners. As 173 heads towards Onondaga Hill/"The Valley" it again is fairly constrained along its route.

Tl;dr: Widening would cause a high amount of property acquisition. I'm not sure it would be required for widening in all areas, however - commercial locations along NY173 are limited to the Fairmount areas until hitting the valley section.

From Camillus and points west , there are (winding) ways to meet I-81 further south at Tully. It is easily 30 minutes longer to take that route with slower-speed country roads

How is the rest of the old routing look for the Western bypass? Other than a major substation and Wegmans employee parking I think the area has filled-in, can't imagine reviving the plan (funding aside) would be well received...

[froggie]

How is the rest of the old routing look for the Western bypass?

- There are houses along Granger Rd (about 1,000ft south of the Wegmans) where the bypass corridor would have crossed it.
- There are blocks of suburban residential development about 3/4mi south of the Wegmans.
- There's at least one house along Fay Rd (about 1.5mi south of Wegmans) that would be impacted.

Beyond that location, what's "in the way" is questionable because there was never a fully defined corridor over to 81.  It never got past the planning stage.  On the early '70s Syracuse metro transportation plan that I found, there were 3 different options for bringing the Southwest bypass to 81.

[vdeane]

Today's announcement was one of the stupidest things I've read about in New York in years. Glad I moved out. Now, if I could just figure out how to change my username here on this board doohickey.

I think you need to PM an admin about that.  Alps changed mine a few years ago.

Meant to reply earlier, but I guess it slipped through the cracks.

[Michael]

I just had yet another thought for I-81: Are business route standards as high as regular Interstate standards?  I remember seeing a post somewhere on the forum about how substandard a business interstate was, and if I remember right, it was I-85 Business in Greensboro, NC.  That used to be regular I-85, then I-85 was realigned on a bypass.  Could the I-81 viaduct be rebuilt in the same footprint and be designated I-81 Business, while still realigning I-81 onto I-481?  Not having to acquire property would reduce the cost of a viaduct, possibly to a similar cost to building a community grid.

[sprjus4]

I just had yet another thought for I-81: Are business route standards as high as regular Interstate standards?

A business route can be a surface road. There's really not much standards in that regard for them. I-95 Business is a surface street through Fayetteville, NC.

[oscar]

I just had yet another thought for I-81: Are business route standards as high as regular Interstate standards?

A business route can be a surface road. There's really not much standards in that regard for them. I-95 Business is a surface street through Fayetteville, NC.

Even two-lane surface streets, of lesser quality than the Fayetteville BR (largely four-lane divided), are Interstate business routes. Business routes often are parts of former U.S. routes bypassed by an Interstate, which especially out west will often be surface streets.

[vdeane]

I'd go so far as to say that surface streets are the norm for business routes.  They're everywhere out west.  Here's a typical example.

[NoGoodNamesAvailable]

I just had yet another thought for I-81: Are business route standards as high as regular Interstate standards?  I remember seeing a post somewhere on the forum about how substandard a business interstate was, and if I remember right, it was I-85 Business in Greensboro, NC.  That used to be regular I-85, then I-85 was realigned on a bypass.  Could the I-81 viaduct be rebuilt in the same footprint and be designated I-81 Business, while still realigning I-81 onto I-481?  Not having to acquire property would reduce the cost of a viaduct, possibly to a similar cost to building a community grid.

A new viaduct with a business interstate designation would have to meet design criteria for either freeways (NYSDOT uses the same criteria for interstates and non-interstate freeways) or NHS urban arterials, which are still strict enough that significant realignment and land takings would be necessary.