New York State Thruway

[Rothman]

Thruway Authority is gonna collect tolls no matter what level of service. I accept that. All I ask is the roads be maintained with them. I take the Thruway east often from exit 49. I more commonly use off exit facilities such as the Flying J at 48A or the Fastrac at 40.

Something's weird with NYSTA in recent years.  Botched concrete pavement installation and the rest area fiasco.  Makes me wonder if, despite their higher salaries compared to NYSDOT, they're having the same engineer shortage.

[kalvado]

Thruway Authority is gonna collect tolls no matter what level of service. I accept that. All I ask is the roads be maintained with them. I take the Thruway east often from exit 49. I more commonly use off exit facilities such as the Flying J at 48A or the Fastrac at 40.

Something's weird with NYSTA in recent years.  Botched concrete pavement installation and the rest area fiasco.  Makes me wonder if, despite their higher salaries compared to NYSDOT, they're having the same engineer shortage.

I would say a shortage of quality and quantity across the board. Baby boomers going out of business are a big factor as well.

[seicer]

Which portion was botched Rothman? There is that segment west of Syracuse that I thought wasn't that old (10 years old or so) but it was not in the great of condition on my last drive. There were a lot of patches. I was looking at some GSV's and it looks like there is some extensive cracking on some of the slabs (https://maps.app.goo.gl/DsvWwNzLiXnU9Djr6). I know that the state loves its salt and brine, but other concrete pavements across the state have lasted decades longer without that much issue so soon.

[Snappyjack]

My father drove from Ardsley to RIT in Henrietta for 4 years for college. He talks about the old style ones all the time. Things change in society. We shouldn't be basing our expectations on 1950s and 1960s designs of customer service. There are 70-something exits on the mainline Thruway if you want better service.

Think about it in such a way: a lot of service providers ended up near regular highway exits to take advantage of that traffic. Nothing like that happened along Thruway as service plazas are very competitive in terms of convenience. There are no off-Thruway facilities to handle that traffic by the exit, and finding something may end up pretty time consuming. No automatic assumption for a gas station or two and something like a McD right next to the exit.
Of course, that will change eventually.... AET makes things easier as well.  I wonder if Thruway would be willing to post services signs, those may help...

Wonder if that would violate agreements made with the service plaza vendors...

There have been more truck stops popping up along the Thruway over the last year or so. A brand new Pilot in Fultonville, and a Loves at Waterloo and Ripley respectively.

[vdeane]

My father drove from Ardsley to RIT in Henrietta for 4 years for college. He talks about the old style ones all the time. Things change in society. We shouldn't be basing our expectations on 1950s and 1960s designs of customer service. There are 70-something exits on the mainline Thruway if you want better service.

Think about it in such a way: a lot of service providers ended up near regular highway exits to take advantage of that traffic. Nothing like that happened along Thruway as service plazas are very competitive in terms of convenience. There are no off-Thruway facilities to handle that traffic by the exit, and finding something may end up pretty time consuming. No automatic assumption for a gas station or two and something like a McD right next to the exit.
Of course, that will change eventually.... AET makes things easier as well.  I wonder if Thruway would be willing to post services signs, those may help...

Wonder if that would violate agreements made with the service plaza vendors...

There have been more truck stops popping up along the Thruway over the last year or so. A brand new Pilot in Fultonville, and a Loves at Waterloo and Ripley respectively.

There are no logo signs for them on the Thruway, however.  The Thruway has logo signs for camping/attractions/lodging, but not food/gas.

Incidentally, I find it interesting that so many people say that AET makes stopping off the exits "so much easier".  Maybe compared to cash, but not for E-ZPass (which is what the majority of people used even before AET).  You're still driving through a cumbersome trumpet interchange and potentially driving a little ways off the road (depending on the exit).  Not to mention breaking up your E-ZPass statement into even more lines (which I'm even less likely to do now that they've made it like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle).  Granted, being a roadgeek means that the Thruway still feels very much like it's own thing to me, since I recognized all the little differences between NYSTA and NYSDOT very easily, but the interchanges are still cumbersome and you don't need to be a roadgeek to notice that.  IMO AET had the biggest convenience increase for the highway interchanges like exit 24 where you wouldn't have services directly at the exit anyways.

[webny99]

there in my inbox on Friday afternoon was an Excel link to the raw traffic count data for every mainline gantry on the Thruway system from Jan 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023. The data for each gantry is organized in a single column by lane, so parsing through and converting it to a more usable format takes some doing, but is manageable now that I've got the hang of it. ...

Update: I'm finished with the initial AADT data compilation for all Thruway gantries between the PA line at Ripley and the MA line at Canaan. This includes all mainline gantries on I-90, plus the two gantries on I-87 that serve as an east-west Thruway alternate via the Berkshire Spur. The data from the gantry at MM 431.2 (former Lackawanna Toll Barrier) was missing several hundred data points, so I've submitted a follow-up FOIL request and marked it "Pending" below until I can obtain complete data.

Route	Mile Marker	Segment Description	2022 AADT*	High Value	High Value Date
I-90	488.4	Exit 61 (Ripley) to 60 (NY394)	20248	34913	Fri, July 1
I-90	431.2	Exit 56 (NY179) to 55 (US219)	Pending	Pending	Pending
I-90	418.2	Exit 50 (I-290) to 49 (NY78)	53851	76194	Fri, Aug 12
I-90	379.1	Exit 48 (NY98) to 47 (I-490)	39982	61040	Fri, Aug 12
I-90	369.3	Exit 47 (I-490) to 46 (I-390)	29338	47649	Fri, July 1
I-90	358.2	Exit 46 (I-390) to 45 (I-490)	31479	49357	Fri, July 1
I-90	348.0	Exit 45 (I-490) to 44 (NY332)	60201	87098	Fri, July 1
I-90	340.5	Exit 44 (NY332) to 43 (NY21)	43265	66300	Fri, July 1
I-90	294.6	Exit 40 (NY34) to 39 (I-690)	37602	60703	Fri, July 1
I-90	288.8	Exit 39 (I-690) to 38 (CR57)	32009	49927	Fri, July 1
I-90	283.4	Exit 37 (ElecPkwy) to 36 (I-81)	35202	53106	Fri, July 1
I-90	281.3	Exit 36 (I-81) to 35 (NY298)	28757	42811	Fri, Oct 7
I-90	277.5	Exit 35 (NY298) to 34A (I-481)	26001	39619	Fri, July 1
I-90	276.1	Exit 34A (I-481) to 34 (NY13)	38236	59912	Fri, Sept 2
I-90	161.0	Exit 26 (I-890) to 25A (I-88)	30233	45577	Fri, July 1
I-90	157.8	Exit 25A (I-88) to 25 (I-890)	43648	64374	Fri, Oct 7
I-90	149.6	Exit 25 (I-890) to 24 (I-87/I-90)	76517	103210	Fri, Oct 7
I-87	145.6	Exit 24 (I-90/I-87) to 23 (I-787)	48224	71674	Fri, July 1
I-87	139.7	Exit 23 (I-787) to 22 (NY144)	49561	76145	Fri, July 1
I-90	B17.7	Exit B2 (TacPkwy) to B3 (NY22)	24903	42867	Sun, Aug 14

*2022 AADT values are raw 365-day averages with exceptions for Thruway closures and extreme weather events. Only full and complete days of data were used. Further details available upon request.

[jeffandnicole]

there in my inbox on Friday afternoon was an Excel link to the raw traffic count data for every mainline gantry on the Thruway system from Jan 1, 2022 to July 31, 2023. The data for each gantry is organized in a single column by lane, so parsing through and converting it to a more usable format takes some doing, but is manageable now that I've got the hang of it. ...

Update: I'm finished with the initial AADT data compilation for all Thruway gantries between the PA line at Ripley and the MA line at Canaan. This includes all mainline gantries on I-90, plus the two gantries on I-87 that serve as an east-west Thruway alternate via the Berkshire Spur. The data from the gantry at MM 431.2 (former Lackawanna Toll Barrier) was missing several hundred data points, so I've submitted a follow-up FOIL request and marked it "Pending" below until I can obtain complete data.

Route	Mile Marker	Segment Description	2022 AADT*	High Value	High Value Date
I-90	488.4	Exit 61 (Ripley) to 60 (NY394)	20248	34913	Fri, July 1
I-90	431.2	Exit 56 (NY179) to 55 (US219)	Pending	Pending	Pending
I-90	418.2	Exit 50 (I-290) to 49 (NY78)	53851	76194	Fri, Aug 12
I-90	379.1	Exit 48 (NY98) to 47 (I-490)	39982	61040	Fri, Aug 12
I-90	369.3	Exit 47 (I-490) to 46 (I-390)	29338	47649	Fri, July 1
I-90	358.2	Exit 46 (I-390) to 45 (I-490)	31479	49357	Fri, July 1
I-90	348.0	Exit 45 (I-490) to 44 (NY332)	60201	87098	Fri, July 1
I-90	340.5	Exit 44 (NY332) to 43 (NY21)	43265	66300	Fri, July 1
I-90	294.6	Exit 40 (NY34) to 39 (I-690)	37602	60703	Fri, July 1
I-90	288.8	Exit 39 (I-690) to 38 (CR57)	32009	49927	Fri, July 1
I-90	283.4	Exit 37 (ElecPkwy) to 36 (I-81)	35202	53106	Fri, July 1
I-90	281.3	Exit 36 (I-81) to 35 (NY298)	28757	42811	Fri, Oct 7
I-90	277.5	Exit 35 (NY298) to 34A (I-481)	26001	39619	Fri, July 1
I-90	276.1	Exit 34A (I-481) to 34 (NY13)	38236	59912	Fri, Sept 2
I-90	161.0	Exit 26 (I-890) to 25A (I-88)	30233	45577	Fri, July 1
I-90	157.8	Exit 25A (I-88) to 25 (I-890)	43648	64374	Fri, Oct 7
I-90	149.6	Exit 25 (I-890) to 24 (I-87/I-90)	76517	103210	Fri, Oct 7
I-87	145.6	Exit 24 (I-90/I-87) to 23 (I-787)	48224	71674	Fri, July 1
I-87	139.7	Exit 23 (I-787) to 22 (NY144)	49561	76145	Fri, July 1
I-90	B17.7	Exit B2 (TacPkwy) to B3 (NY22)	24903	42867	Sun, Aug 14

*2022 AADT values are raw 365-day averages with exceptions for Thruway closures and extreme weather events. Only full and complete days of data were used. Further details available upon request.

So what are the events on and around the weekends of August 12 and October 7 that attributes to the spikes in those areas?

[froggie]

10/7 could arguably coincide with the leaf peepers...

[webny99]

So what are the events on and around the weekends of August 12 and October 7 that attributes to the spikes in those areas?

Aug 12th was a Bills preseason game weekend, and Oct 7th ranks highly across the board as Columbus Day weekend is increasingly a defacto holiday weekend in leaf peeping territory, and it's no surprise that it ranked higher further east, as the Adirondacks and Vermont are prime destinations for such. (Edit: froggie beat me to this one.  )

The Berkshire Spur high value being Sun Aug 14 is the one that threw me. Saratoga Races, perhaps?

[jeffandnicole]

So what are the events on and around the weekends of August 12 and October 7 that attributes to the spikes in those areas?

Aug 12th was a Bills preseason game weekend, and Oct 7th ranks highly across the board as Columbus Day weekend is increasingly a defacto holiday weekend in leaf peeping territory, and it's no surprise that it ranked higher further east, as the Adirondacks and Vermont are prime destinations for such. (Edit: froggie beat me to this one.  )

The Berkshire Spur high value being Sun Aug 14 is the one that threw me. Saratoga Races, perhaps?

I see the Bills preseason game was on Aug 13. Unless Bills fans come in a day early on a Friday and spend the night for a meaningless preseason game the following late afternoon, I don't think that can really attribute to that day's jump, at least on its own. I would think Bills regular season games would generate much higher traffic volume, especially their Monday night game on Sept. 19 in combination with regular workday traffic. Preseason football rarely will fill stadiums, even if technically "sold out". Just using my experience from Philly, season ticket holders are required to purchase tickets to all games, including preseason games. However actual attendance of those preseason games is barely half the stadium.

Columbus Day weekend and turning leaves make sense.

[webny99]

So what are the events on and around the weekends of August 12 and October 7 that attributes to the spikes in those areas?

Aug 12th was a Bills preseason game weekend ...

I see the Bills preseason game was on Aug 13. Unless Bills fans come in a day early on a Friday and spend the night for a meaningless preseason game the following late afternoon, I don't think that can really attribute to that day's jump, at least on its own. I would think Bills regular season games would generate much higher traffic volume, especially their Monday night game on Sept. 19 in combination with regular workday traffic. Preseason football rarely will fill stadiums, even if technically "sold out". Just using my experience from Philly, season ticket holders are required to purchase tickets to all games, including preseason games. However actual attendance of those preseason games is barely half the stadium.

I don't disagree with that, but a few points: first, that day was not much higher than July 1st at either location - slightly higher, but within 2-3k. Second, day of week has to be considered, and summer Fridays are typically the busiest travel days of the year. But it was also not a holiday weekend, so commuter traffic was probably a bit higher than you might get the Friday before July 4th/Labor Day.
As for the regular season, most games are on Sunday, so anyone arriving early would more likely arrive on Saturday, a lower travel day, plus those games occur outside of peak summer travel season. I'll have to dig into the Sept 19th game later. Likely a heavy day for WB traffic, but EB (postgame) would have spilled into Tuesday AM.

I could be missing something, but I can't think of anything else that might have contributed to traffic that weekend. The huge events in August are the State Fair in Syracuse which doesn't start until later, and summer airshows at Buffalo/Niagara and/or Rochester, but I couldn't find any that occurred that weekend.

[lstone19]

Incidentally, I find it interesting that so many people say that AET makes stopping off the exits "so much easier".  Maybe compared to cash, but not for E-ZPass (which is what the majority of people used even before AET).  You're still driving through a cumbersome trumpet interchange and potentially driving a little ways off the road (depending on the exit).  Not to mention breaking up your E-ZPass statement into even more lines (which I'm even less likely to do now that they've made it like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle).

One difference now is there no longer any penalty (other than a penny some places) for exiting and then re-entering. Tolls are strictly mileage with no rounding up or minimums. I looked at the toll table for the Erie section and you can go straight 55 to 61 or exit and re-enter at every interchange and pay the same amount.

Yes, trumpets can be a pain, particularly double-trumpets. Choose where to make your off-Thruway stop carefully so you're on the non-trumpet side. I was unexpectedly in eastern Mass. last week and was somewhat frustrated by the over one mile slow slog going from WB MA 9 to WB I-90 (trumpet side of both but at least the ramps are in the correct quadrant of the crossing for that move).

And while I understand your pain about the statements, we're probably a very small minority that actually checks (I do because I'm always in a rental car now with EZ-Pass and I want to make sure they post. I was also glad to see that as I thought I had read, the Mass Pike does consolidate multiple gantries in one trip and compared to the slow posting of Thruway tolls, my Mass Pike tolls all posted to my IL I-Pass (EZ-Pass) account overnight two days later (Tuesday tolls posted late Thursday night).

But checking is a good thing. I recently discovered one of my California FastTrak tags died (less than two years old so should not be a dead battery). But unlike some of the eastern roads, they quickly refunded the tolls by plate (posted to the FastTrak account for using HOV/Express lanes (tolled for SOV, free for 2+ vehicles with an appropriate tag)) and they do not charge extra when having to post to a FastTrak account by license plate due to no read (I know some of the eastern road policies are when their equipment fails, you still pay extra for it).

[webny99]

Yes, trumpets can be a pain, particularly double-trumpets. Choose where to make your off-Thruway stop carefully so you're on the non-trumpet side. I was unexpectedly in eastern Mass. last week and was somewhat frustrated by the over one mile slow slog going from WB MA 9 to WB I-90 (trumpet side of both but at least the ramps are in the correct quadrant of the crossing for that move).

Definitely agreed, getting off the Thruway at I-390 is a pain for this reason. Once you factor in the double trumpet to get off the Thruway and then having to exit from I-390, it takes at least five minutes to get to even the closest travel stops.

For worst trumpets, if you think double is bad, how about a triple? The Mass Pike at I-91/US 5 is technically a quadruple trumpet, but I'm calling it a triple as you'd never use all four in one shot. Unsurprisingly, it seems to go on forever as you pass through it, especially connecting to I-91.

[lstone19]

Yes, trumpets can be a pain, particularly double-trumpets. Choose where to make your off-Thruway stop carefully so you're on the non-trumpet side. I was unexpectedly in eastern Mass. last week and was somewhat frustrated by the over one mile slow slog going from WB MA 9 to WB I-90 (trumpet side of both but at least the ramps are in the correct quadrant of the crossing for that move).

Definitely agreed, getting off the Thruway at I-390 is a pain for this reason. Once you factor in the double trumpet to get off the Thruway and then having to exit from I-390, it takes at least five minutes to get to even the closest travel stops.

For worst trumpets, if you think double is bad, how about a triple? The Mass Pike at I-91/US 5 is technically a quadruple trumpet, but I'm calling it a triple as you'd never use all four in one shot. Unsurprisingly, it seems to go on forever as you pass through it, especially connecting to I-91.

Agree. And the trumpet on I-91 is so far north. I've wondered if to go EB Mass Pike to SB I-91 if it wouldn't be faster to use US 5. I think it's a couple of miles shorter although some traffic lights to deal with. Other direction (NB I-91 to WB Mass Pike) is also a pain but at least it's all on the non-trumpet side.

Another triple trumpet (and I've done all three on the trumpet sides) is I-81/PA Tpk/US-6/11 north of Scranton.

[jeffandnicole]

So what are the events on and around the weekends of August 12 and October 7 that attributes to the spikes in those areas?

Aug 12th was a Bills preseason game weekend ...

I see the Bills preseason game was on Aug 13. Unless Bills fans come in a day early on a Friday and spend the night for a meaningless preseason game the following late afternoon, I don't think that can really attribute to that day's jump, at least on its own. I would think Bills regular season games would generate much higher traffic volume, especially their Monday night game on Sept. 19 in combination with regular workday traffic. Preseason football rarely will fill stadiums, even if technically "sold out". Just using my experience from Philly, season ticket holders are required to purchase tickets to all games, including preseason games. However actual attendance of those preseason games is barely half the stadium.

I don't disagree with that, but a few points: first, that day was not much higher than July 1st at either location - slightly higher, but within 2-3k. Second, day of week has to be considered, and summer Fridays are typically the busiest travel days of the year. But it was also not a holiday weekend, so commuter traffic was probably a bit higher than you might get the Friday before July 4th/Labor Day.
As for the regular season, most games are on Sunday, so anyone arriving early would more likely arrive on Saturday, a lower travel day, plus those games occur outside of peak summer travel season. I'll have to dig into the Sept 19th game later. Likely a heavy day for WB traffic, but EB (postgame) would have spilled into Tuesday AM.

I could be missing something, but I can't think of anything else that might have contributed to traffic that weekend. The huge events in August are the State Fair in Syracuse which doesn't start until later, and summer airshows at Buffalo/Niagara and/or Rochester, but I couldn't find any that occurred that weekend.

Yeah, I was doing a quick search and didn't see anything of interest either.  If it's just a few thousand higher than a normal Friday volume that happened to see its peak, it could be a bunch of various things during the day in and around the greater Buffalo area.

[webny99]

Yeah, I was doing a quick search and didn't see anything of interest either.  If it's just a few thousand higher than a normal Friday volume that happened to see its peak, it could be a bunch of various things during the day in and around the greater Buffalo area.

2211 higher than July 1 at MM418.2 and only 257 higher at MM379.1, to be exact. Definitely a small enough of a bump to attribute to just about anything, and no doubt the Bills game was one of those things, even despite it being preseason.

Regarding the Bills night game on Sept 19th, data from MM418.2 shows that WB was about 3k higher than normal on Monday, and EB was about 3k higher than normal on Tuesday. Still, the ADT values for those days were only 58k and 60k respectively, not enough to touch the 70k+ values common on summer Fridays.

[Alps]

Two things.
1) Quick note: the "pending" row may never get resolved. Sometimes a counter goes down. It may be charging tolls but not recording transactions enough to spit back volumes to you. I wish you luck though.
2) Traffic engineers would sort this by season (Summer, spring/fall, winter) based on average daily volumes. Summer tends to be highest. We would then use summer as our peak season and determine the average summer ADT (not AADT, taking out the word "annual) for the purpose of traffic analysis. While it's good to know the peak-of-the-peak volumes, you do not design a road for July 1. You design a road to handle traffic 95%+ of the time, acknowledging that exceptional circumstances may cause backup, but you don't build a road for 5 lanes if it can do the job with 3 lanes other than that one day.

Happy to chat with anyone here about #2 since that's kinda what I do for a living, so shoot me an email, no need to bog down this thread.

[webny99]

Yup, I'm not expecting to hear anything on the missing data for at least a week, given the previous response times. And even then, my expectations are not high. However, the missing data is sporadic enough (approx. 2-5 WB values per day; EB was perfectly fine) that I'm hoping there was an issue with data transfer and not the collection site itself.

And totally understood on #2. I wasn't sharing those values as some sort of be-all end-all by any means. Just sorting the data highest ADT to lowest happened to be the first thing I did, and I found the results interesting. And in fact, sorting by season was the next thing I was going to do.

[NoGoodNamesAvailable]

I'm surprised summer is the busiest, I always notice an uptick in traffic during the school year (ie not summer) 

[vdeane]

Yes, trumpets can be a pain, particularly double-trumpets. Choose where to make your off-Thruway stop carefully so you're on the non-trumpet side. I was unexpectedly in eastern Mass. last week and was somewhat frustrated by the over one mile slow slog going from WB MA 9 to WB I-90 (trumpet side of both but at least the ramps are in the correct quadrant of the crossing for that move).

Definitely agreed, getting off the Thruway at I-390 is a pain for this reason. Once you factor in the double trumpet to get off the Thruway and then having to exit from I-390, it takes at least five minutes to get to even the closest travel stops.

For worst trumpets, if you think double is bad, how about a triple? The Mass Pike at I-91/US 5 is technically a quadruple trumpet, but I'm calling it a triple as you'd never use all four in one shot. Unsurprisingly, it seems to go on forever as you pass through it, especially connecting to I-91.

Yeah, that one's annoying.  Still, whatever this is called is worse... that traffic light is really long, and no turn on red to boot.

[webny99]

I'm surprised summer is the busiest, I always notice an uptick in traffic during the school year (ie not summer) 

That's true of urban/suburban areas, especially on local roads and near schools. But for a rural highway or interstate like the Thruway that connects cities and carries long-distance traffic, summer is the busiest season precisely because those same schools that generate traffic in the fall, winter and spring are closed for the summer, the weather is nice, and families take the opportunity to travel and go on vacation.

[webny99]

Definitely agreed, getting off the Thruway at I-390 is a pain for this reason. Once you factor in the double trumpet to get off the Thruway and then having to exit from I-390, it takes at least five minutes to get to even the closest travel stops.

For worst trumpets, if you think double is bad, how about a triple? The Mass Pike at I-91/US 5 is technically a quadruple trumpet, but I'm calling it a triple as you'd never use all four in one shot. Unsurprisingly, it seems to go on forever as you pass through it, especially connecting to I-91.

Yeah, that one's annoying.  Still, whatever this is called is worse... that traffic light is really long, and no turn on red to boot.

Indeed, I traveled through that one myself a few summers back and found it very odd. I guess we could call it Breezewood, MA (although it has more in common with PA's other non-connections than Breezewood itself).

[Rothman]

Yes, trumpets can be a pain, particularly double-trumpets. Choose where to make your off-Thruway stop carefully so you're on the non-trumpet side. I was unexpectedly in eastern Mass. last week and was somewhat frustrated by the over one mile slow slog going from WB MA 9 to WB I-90 (trumpet side of both but at least the ramps are in the correct quadrant of the crossing for that move).

Definitely agreed, getting off the Thruway at I-390 is a pain for this reason. Once you factor in the double trumpet to get off the Thruway and then having to exit from I-390, it takes at least five minutes to get to even the closest travel stops.

For worst trumpets, if you think double is bad, how about a triple? The Mass Pike at I-91/US 5 is technically a quadruple trumpet, but I'm calling it a triple as you'd never use all four in one shot. Unsurprisingly, it seems to go on forever as you pass through it, especially connecting to I-91.

Yeah, that one's annoying.  Still, whatever this is called is worse... that traffic light is really long, and no turn on red to boot.

You should have seen the lack of connection to MA 146 before the improved interchange you linked to!  An old family friend was a Captain in the Navy and had to head to Newport, RI from western MA from time to time.  He cursed the heavens with the nonsense you had to go through to find MA 146...as did my family when we followed him down there one year.

See the rail lines and other constraints to see how the current ramps ended up the way they did.

[vdeane]

Yes, trumpets can be a pain, particularly double-trumpets. Choose where to make your off-Thruway stop carefully so you're on the non-trumpet side. I was unexpectedly in eastern Mass. last week and was somewhat frustrated by the over one mile slow slog going from WB MA 9 to WB I-90 (trumpet side of both but at least the ramps are in the correct quadrant of the crossing for that move).

Definitely agreed, getting off the Thruway at I-390 is a pain for this reason. Once you factor in the double trumpet to get off the Thruway and then having to exit from I-390, it takes at least five minutes to get to even the closest travel stops.

For worst trumpets, if you think double is bad, how about a triple? The Mass Pike at I-91/US 5 is technically a quadruple trumpet, but I'm calling it a triple as you'd never use all four in one shot. Unsurprisingly, it seems to go on forever as you pass through it, especially connecting to I-91.

Yeah, that one's annoying.  Still, whatever this is called is worse... that traffic light is really long, and no turn on red to boot.

You should have seen the lack of connection to MA 146 before the improved interchange you linked to!  An old family friend was a Captain in the Navy and had to head to Newport, RI from western MA from time to time.  He cursed the heavens with the nonsense you had to go through to find MA 146...as did my family when we followed him down there one year.

See the rail lines and other constraints to see how the current ramps ended up the way they did.

Honestly, if the interchange wasn't there I'd probably just use I-495 for that route.  It's not even 15 minutes longer now, much less back before exit 94 was built and local streets were needed for that connection.  I wonder what would have happened if they had instead improved the connections around on Park Hill and Millbury and foregone direct local access to US 20 entirely.

[webny99]

One of my priorities with obtaining the Thruway count data was to run a comparative analysis between Exit 45-46 and 46-47 (the segments east and west of I-390, between I-490's endpoints).

The reason being, it surprised me that 45-46 has a higher AADT because that segment wouldn't get much Rochester-Syracuse traffic relative to the Rochester-Buffalo traffic on 46-47. While that's true, it turns out my own interaction with 46-47, primarily using it on weekend trips to/from Buffalo and Canada, was affecting my perception. In fact, the reason 45-46 is a bit busier isn't because of long-distance or metro-to-metro traffic at all, but a wave of Victor to Henrietta commuter traffic evidenced by spikes in traffic at 7-8AM and 4-5PM that aren't present on 46-47, plus slightly higher sustained weekday volumes due to suburb-to-suburb traffic between Victor and Henrietta. (Obviously, there is little to no commuter traffic on 46-47, while it's only increased on 45-46 in recent decades as Rochester suburbia/exurbia continues to grow near exits 44 and 45.)

I then sorted the daily counts into a side-by-side comparison of the 45-46 count next to the 46-47 count, then calculated the difference between the two values for each day. The result: 46-47 was busier on exactly 28 of 360 days in 2022 (and was closed for all or part of the remaining 5 days, so those days weren't included in the data). The dates are shown below sorted by date, headlined by Thanksgiving Day at -1884. All of the other 27 days on which 46-47 was busier were a Saturday or Sunday, 18 of them occurred between June and August, and 6 of them were Buffalo Bills game days (shown in blue). (Technically, Thanksgiving was also a Bills game day, but it was an away game as they played the Lions in Detroit.)