New York State Thruway

[kalvado]

Traffic counts? At least they are all getting upgrades with showers

What's the plan for the one lonesome service area west of Buffalo?

https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/service-area-project/locations.html - click on a map for more information
Old lineup for areas where renovation didn't start:
https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/index.cgi
Looks like things are more or less coherent.
FOr example, Oneida area. Was:  Burger King, Starbucks, Sbarro Will be: Burger King, Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Panera Bread
Seneca: Was: Tim Horton's, Checkers (Closed) will be: Dunkin Donuts (Drive-Thru)
Angola: was:  McDonald's, LavAzza, Sandella's, Ella's Pizza and Pasta, Subway, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Cinnabon; will be: Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Shake Shack, Panda Express, Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon (How would they go with a drive-through???)  - this may be a downgrade...

[MASTERNC]

Traffic counts? At least they are all getting upgrades with showers

What's the plan for the one lonesome service area west of Buffalo?

https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/service-area-project/locations.html - click on a map for more information
Old lineup for areas where renovation didn't start:
https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/index.cgi
Looks like things are more or less coherent.
FOr example, Oneida area. Was:  Burger King, Starbucks, Sbarro Will be: Burger King, Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Panera Bread
Seneca: Was: Tim Horton's, Checkers (Closed) will be: Dunkin Donuts (Drive-Thru)
Angola: was:  McDonald's, LavAzza, Sandella's, Ella's Pizza and Pasta, Subway, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Cinnabon; will be: Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Shake Shack, Panda Express, Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon (How would they go with a drive-through???)  - this may be a downgrade...

They might do a freestanding Starbucks in each direction like Delaware did on I-95.  The exterior rendering for Angola is inconsistent with the median location of the building, though.

[vdeane]

Traffic counts? At least they are all getting upgrades with showers

What's the plan for the one lonesome service area west of Buffalo?

https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/service-area-project/locations.html - click on a map for more information
Old lineup for areas where renovation didn't start:
https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/index.cgi
Looks like things are more or less coherent.
FOr example, Oneida area. Was:  Burger King, Starbucks, Sbarro Will be: Burger King, Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Panera Bread
Seneca: Was: Tim Horton's, Checkers (Closed) will be: Dunkin Donuts (Drive-Thru)
Angola: was:  McDonald's, LavAzza, Sandella's, Ella's Pizza and Pasta, Subway, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Cinnabon; will be: Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Shake Shack, Panda Express, Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon (How would they go with a drive-through???)  - this may be a downgrade...

Keep in mind that many concepts closed during the pandemic and never re-opened, and as such are not listed on that page.  For example, Ulster is missing Pizza Hut Express.

Comparing the projected list to to a pamphlet I got in 2012...
Angola has fewer restaurants but still qualifies as interesting, at least.  I think it has more restaurants than would be possible even if they had everything a new service area could have.
Whether Clarence is a downgrade depends on how you feel about Dunkin vs. Tim Hortons.
Seneca is a downgrade; (Dunkin vs. Tim Hortons/Villa Pizza/Checkers).
Junius Ponds is arguable an upgrade (Starbucks/Shake Shack vs. Dunkin/Roy Rogers).
Port Byron is a downgrade (Burger King/Dunkin vs. McDonald's/Boston Pizza).
Warners is a downgrade (Starbucks/Burger Kings vs. McDonald's/Boston Pizza).
DeWitt is a downgrade even though it only has McDonald's - better not want lunch there, because all they'll have is coffee with Starbuck's.
Chittenango is a downgrade as well (Starbucks vs. Starbucks/Sbarro).
Schuyler is like DeWitt, only with Dunkin instead.  I guess a sufficient number of donuts qualifies as a meal?
Iroquois swaps Dunkin for Starbucks and loses Nathan's and whatever Freshen's is.
Indian Castle... now this is brutal!  From Roy Rogers/Nathan's/Starbucks to just Starbucks.
Mohawk is an actual upgrade unless you don't care for coffee or donuts (Dunkin/Burger King vs. McDonald's).
Guilderland is a downgrade (Burger King/Starbucks vs. McDonald's/Boston Pizza).

Onto I-87...
New Baltimore will still be interesting, but have fewer restaurants.
Malden is a downgrade (Dunkin/Burger King vs. McDonald's/Boston Pizza/Gourmet Cup/Sandella's).
Ulster is a downgrade, losing Roy Rogers/Nathan's/Pizza Hut Express/Arthur Treacher's in favor of Panda Express.  Starbucks stays.
Sloatsburg will have one fewer restaurant but stay interesting.
Ramapo is getting a massive upgrade (Starbucks/Shake Shack/Panera Bread/Panda Express vs. McDonald's/Pizzeria Uno/LavAzza - how all that fit in what looks like a normal McDonald's, I have no idea!).
Ardsley is a downgrade (losing Popeyes; Burger King and Starbucks stay).

Service areas not listed are comparable to what was there before.

[cl94]

DeWitt is right next to the Carrier Circle exit, which itself is a de facto service area and arguably the best exit along the Thruway for services. If any service area gets downgraded, it should be that one. I always stop at the Speedway/McDonald's/etc. just off the circle instead of the service area because the restrooms are generally cleaner and the food/gas/etc. is cheaper

With Ramapo, remember that they're tearing down the building and starting new. Plenty of room for a larger building, though I could see them putting in a parking garage and/or abandoning the wastewater treatment plant to tie into municipal sewage. Only a few buildings are actually staying. Sloatsburg and a couple others.

Remember also that they chose the size of the facilities based on traffic. The ones that are being "downgraded" have little business as it is. The locations being upgraded are undersized relative to the traffic they receive. I think every location will have an "Applegreen Market", which will likely be on par with gas station food options or maybe half a step above.

[GenExpwy]

Have they given up on Chick-fil-a (and Popeye's), or are the chicken locations still in negotiation? I don't see either one listed anywhere.

[vdeane]

DeWitt is right next to the Carrier Circle exit, which itself is a de facto service area and arguably the best exit along the Thruway for services. If any service area gets downgraded, it should be that one. I always stop at the Speedway/McDonald's/etc. just off the circle instead of the service area because the restrooms are generally cleaner and the food/gas/etc. is cheaper

With Ramapo, remember that they're tearing down the building and starting new. Plenty of room for a larger building, though I could see them putting in a parking garage and/or abandoning the wastewater treatment plant to tie into municipal sewage. Only a few buildings are actually staying. Sloatsburg and a couple others.

Remember also that they chose the size of the facilities based on traffic. The ones that are being "downgraded" have little business as it is. The locations being upgraded are undersized relative to the traffic they receive. I think every location will have an "Applegreen Market", which will likely be on par with gas station food options or maybe half a step above.

I know they're building new buildings... I was wondering how the existing places fit in Ramapo.  From the outside, it looks like any other McDonalds (though I later measured and it's twice as large as the other two McDonalds locations I looked at... that must be how; I wonder why it looks like McDonalds rather than like the other service areas).

I guess the question is what kind of gas station Applegreen will be comparable too.  Hopefully at least Cumberland Farms or Stewart's.  Probably not Sheetz or Wawa.

Have they given up on Chick-fil-a (and Popeye's), or are the chicken locations still in negotiation? I don't see either one listed anywhere.

Quite possibly.  They were on the lists, but vanished when the political controversy around it started.

[seicer]

Sheetz has ruled out moving to New York flat-out. I'm not sure why.

[cl94]

Sheetz has ruled out moving to New York flat-out. I'm not sure why.

Few reasons:

1. New York fire code requires sprinklers and full fire alarm systems in gas station buildings. Sheetz does not want to modify their designs to include sprinklers. This is the biggest reason.
2. NY has weird accounting requirements that companies often don't like dealing with. For example, NY requires some types of stores and restaurants to have paper records of transactions in a back room (unless this has changed).
3. Sheetz has more to gain by expanding south and west, where the competition is less fierce and the economy isn't stagnant with a shrinking population.

Probably others that I'm not thinking of immediately, but there are many reasons why New York isn't a place high on the expansion list for most chains.

[Buffaboy]

Traffic counts? At least they are all getting upgrades with showers

What's the plan for the one lonesome service area west of Buffalo?

https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/service-area-project/locations.html - click on a map for more information
Old lineup for areas where renovation didn't start:
https://www.thruway.ny.gov/travelers/travelplazas/index.cgi
Looks like things are more or less coherent.
FOr example, Oneida area. Was:  Burger King, Starbucks, Sbarro Will be: Burger King, Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Panera Bread
Seneca: Was: Tim Horton's, Checkers (Closed) will be: Dunkin Donuts (Drive-Thru)
Angola: was:  McDonald's, LavAzza, Sandella's, Ella's Pizza and Pasta, Subway, Moe's Southwest Grill, Auntie Anne's, Carvel, Cinnabon; will be: Starbucks (Drive-Thru), Shake Shack, Panda Express, Auntie Anne's, Cinnabon (How would they go with a drive-through???)  - this may be a downgrade...

Shake Shack in Angola? That's a nice 20 minute road trip for me.

If this doesn't fall through then that'll be the first location in WNY. It almost seems too good to be true.

[vdeane]

I thought this article that was posted to another thread was interesting.  It would certainly solve some problems if NYSTA had been dissolved and the Thruway given to NYSDOT.  There would likely be reference markers and normal county/town line signs, and the impediment to doing mile-based numbers for I-90 and I-87 based on their own mileage would be gone.  Maybe the direct ramps for I-87 at exit 24 would have been built, too, along with widening the ramp to I-90 east from I-490 at exit 45 (since the toll booths would have gone down before the state went into preservation mode, rather than after).

Speaking of tolls, off topic, but here's an interesting article from July 20, 1982. What ever happened with this?

Thruway's Tolls to End in "˜96 with Federal Aid

Starting in 1996, motorists in New York State will be able to use the Gov. Thomas E. Dewey Thruway without paying tolls, under the terms of an agreement signed here today by representatives of the Federal Highway Trust and state officials.

The annual saving for truck and passenger car owners, assuming tolls in 1996 would be the same as now, would be $155 million. Under the agreement, the Federal Government will contribute $9.8 million next year and more in subsequent years to repair and rehabilitate the 559-mile road linking New York City, Albany and Buffalo. In the next 14 years, the total Washington contribution to repairing the Thruway may reach $550 million, officials said.

Bonds Will Be Paid in 1996

In return, the New York State Thruway Authority agreed that in 1996, when all its bonds are paid off, it would recommend to the State Legislature that the authority be abolished and the road be made toll free.

Under the terms of the agreement, if the Legislature does not eliminate the tolls, it must repay to the Federal Government all funds contributed by the Highway Trust. Officials here said such a repayment was most unlikely.

''New York's dream of a toll-free state Thruway will at long last come true,'' said Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who introduced the bill in Congress to make the agreement possible.

The Democratic Senator spoke during a brief ceremony at the Thruway headquarters here, attended by Lester P. Lamm, executive director of the Federal Highway Trust; Gerald Cummins, chairman of the Thruway Authority, and William C. Hennessy, State Transportation Commissioner. Shift of Jurisdiction

When the tolls expire in 1996, the Thruway and its employees, now totaling 2,500, will probably come under the jurisdiction of the Transportation Department. The Thruway Authority's budget for 1982 is $183 million, which is used for operations, maintenance and redemption of bonds.

At present, Thruway tolls are about 2.5 cents a mile for passenger cars, or $8.65 for a trip from New York to Buffalo. For Buffalo to New York, the total is $1.50 higher because of the Tappan Zee Bridge eastbound toll.

A possibility under the agreement signed today is that the bridge toll, too, will be eliminated in 1996.

[SignBridge]

Very interesting. I too would like to know what happened to that agreement. One thing I do know is that special authorities that operate public works projects usually have as their main priority the objective of perpetuating their own existence.

Interestingly, Massachusetts a few years ago abolished their Turnpike Authority, though tolls are still being collected by Mass DOT maybe ? 

[Roadgeek Adam]

I mean, the simpler answer is if you take out more bonds, you can delay the toll agreement by having more bonds to pay off.

[Plutonic Panda]

I'd be for keeping tolls under the condition they widen and modernize the thruway and remove the tolls once paid off.

[SignBridge]

That's usually how it works. And then when the bonds are again almost paid off, the Authority will need to do another big expansion project of some kind and the cycle begins again and that's how the tolls remain forever and the Toll Authority perpetuates its existence......LOL

[Plutonic Panda]

That's usually how it works. And then when the bonds are again almost paid off, the Authority will need to do another big expansion project of some kind and the cycle begins again and that's how the tolls remain forever and the Toll Authority perpetuates its existence......LOL

It can be done though examples exist.

[vdeane]

That's roughly what happened in MA.  Every time the bonds were due to be paid off, the Turnpike Authority would skimp on maintenance for a few years and they take out new bonds to fix everything.  Now the AET tolling is paying for the cash toll booth removal.  Talk about irony.

[cl94]

The thing to remember is that it's not like there's more federal money that would be coming New York's way if the Thruway went toll-free. Other states have looked at abolishing tolls until they realized that their federal road money wouldn't increase to make up for it. Massachusetts looked at killing MassPike tolls when MassDOT became a thing, but they decided to keep them because it would have ended up being a massive funding hit. Same thing with the Thruway: 570 miles of freeway and several large bridges that are paid for with tolls. Close to 30% of New York's Interstate mileage is NYSTA. You'd need to take NY's already-inadequate road funding and apply it to an extra 570 freeway miles which are kept in pretty good condition with tolls.

TL;DR: At this point, NYSTA basically exists to maintain the Thruway, allowing state/federal road funding to go elsewhere. Taxes would need to go up by a decent amount to make up for the loss in toll revenue.

[vdeane]

The question is, why doesn't the federal money go up?  Isn't it supposed to be set by a formula that takes the mileage of eligible roadway into account?  Seems like the feds need to re-run that formula every time rather than distribute based on what the formula said decades ago.

[kalvado]

The question is, why doesn't the federal money go up?  Isn't it supposed to be set by a formula that takes the mileage of eligible roadway into account?  Seems like the feds need to re-run that formula every time rather than distribute based on what the formula said decades ago.

In theory - yes. One thing to keep in mind, though:

[Rothman]

The question is, why doesn't the federal money go up?  Isn't it supposed to be set by a formula that takes the mileage of eligible roadway into account?  Seems like the feds need to re-run that formula every time rather than distribute based on what the formula said decades ago.

I believe NYSDOT already snags NHPP funds based upon the Thruway's Interstate Highway mileage.

[vdeane]

Sounds then like the deal mentioned stayed in effect and NY simply took advantage of Congress eliminating the provision of federal law that said that places where toll roads were included in federal funding apportionments had to go toll free when the bonds were paid off.

[astralentity]

I thought this article that was posted to another thread was interesting.  It would certainly solve some problems if NYSTA had been dissolved and the Thruway given to NYSDOT.  There would likely be reference markers and normal county/town line signs, and the impediment to doing mile-based numbers for I-90 and I-87 based on their own mileage would be gone.  Maybe the direct ramps for I-87 at exit 24 would have been built, too, along with widening the ramp to I-90 east from I-490 at exit 45 (since the toll booths would have gone down before the state went into preservation mode, rather than after).

Well now that the booths are gone, I will be advocating for Exit 24 be reconfigured so that the stub end of the Northway is directly connected and get rid of that BS that wraps around Crossgates.

[vdeane]

I thought this article that was posted to another thread was interesting.  It would certainly solve some problems if NYSTA had been dissolved and the Thruway given to NYSDOT.  There would likely be reference markers and normal county/town line signs, and the impediment to doing mile-based numbers for I-90 and I-87 based on their own mileage would be gone.  Maybe the direct ramps for I-87 at exit 24 would have been built, too, along with widening the ramp to I-90 east from I-490 at exit 45 (since the toll booths would have gone down before the state went into preservation mode, rather than after).

Well now that the booths are gone, I will be advocating for Exit 24 be reconfigured so that the stub end of the Northway is directly connected and get rid of that BS that wraps around Crossgates.

A lot of traffic uses those Crossgates ramps - enough that I can't imagine what traffic would be like if they were gone.  The Town of Guilderland certainly wouldn't be happy - in fact, they're trying to encourage non-Crossgates traffic to bypass US 20 with those ramps!

[cl94]

A lot of traffic uses those Crossgates ramps - enough that I can't imagine what traffic would be like if they were gone.  The Town of Guilderland certainly wouldn't be happy - in fact, they're trying to encourage non-Crossgates traffic to bypass US 20 with those ramps!

Didn't the town have something to do with paying for those ramps? I know that part of the ring road is technically a town road, but I could swear the ramps had some weirdness as well.

[kalvado]

I thought this article that was posted to another thread was interesting.  It would certainly solve some problems if NYSTA had been dissolved and the Thruway given to NYSDOT.  There would likely be reference markers and normal county/town line signs, and the impediment to doing mile-based numbers for I-90 and I-87 based on their own mileage would be gone.  Maybe the direct ramps for I-87 at exit 24 would have been built, too, along with widening the ramp to I-90 east from I-490 at exit 45 (since the toll booths would have gone down before the state went into preservation mode, rather than after).

Well now that the booths are gone, I will be advocating for Exit 24 be reconfigured so that the stub end of the Northway is directly connected and get rid of that BS that wraps around Crossgates.

A lot of traffic uses those Crossgates ramps - enough that I can't imagine what traffic would be like if they were gone.  The Town of Guilderland certainly wouldn't be happy - in fact, they're trying to encourage non-Crossgates traffic to bypass US 20 with those ramps!

The way I read that post is removal of U-ramps funneling I-87 Thruway traffic to and from tollbooths are in question. They do not go around crossgates, though. Reconfiguring I87 Thruway < = > Northway connection is a great idea (not without issues, of course).
Keeping Crossgates exit may be an issue since exits cannot serve just commercial centers. A smart lawyer would have to pen an explanation why those ramps serve town of Guilderland rather than just the mall.