New York State Thruway

[astralentity]

Stupid question... what is the Thruway's reasoning behind keeping the I-587 shield off of the exit 19 guide signs?  It's clearly connected to I-87 via the roundabout at the exit ramp.

If I were to guess, I'd say it's simply the absence of reasoning. The exit has always been, and still is, at NY 28, and no new route has been built there since. (That's in contrast to, say, the exits at NY 15 and NY 19, where a new highway facility was built and added to the signage, while also retaining the older routes.)

If the question ever came up, they might reason that it makes sense to sign I-587 from the Thruway, but since nothing's ever really changed, the question never arose, and so they never reasoned anything at all.

I guess a better question is, why does NYSDOT sign I-587?  It ends at a roundabout and a traffic light that is being converted to a roundabout, has no interchanges in between, didn't even have a median barrier across one bridge for a long while, and is concurrent with NY 28 for its whole length.  I can see a stronger case for signing I-478 than I-587 (though now that I think about it... why not just extend NY 9A along I-478 if you don't want to sign the interstate?), and that isn't signed.

I wouldn't be surprized if that was a part of Thruway deal or something - a 3DI to big enough municipalities along the road. 790 and 587 seem to be there just for the sake of it.

I am of the belief that I-790 should now be extended to Rome since they made 49 a complete expressway.

[vdeane]

That was an actual proposal; NYSDOT tried to get it rerouted/extended to NY 825.  FHWA, however, wanted it to go all the way to downtown Rome... and the NY 49 freeway to the west of there does not meet interstate standards, most notably with the at-grade railroad crossing.

[machias]

That was an actual proposal; NYSDOT tried to get it rerouted/extended to NY 825.  FHWA, however, wanted it to go all the way to downtown Rome... and the NY 49 freeway to the west of there does not meet interstate standards, most notably with the at-grade railroad crossing.

There's a very long range proposal of extending I-790 all the way to Thruway Exit 33, but it's only in discussion phase on the HOCTS agenda once in a while. There has been talk about renumbering NY 365 from Verona to Rome, and NY 49 from Rome to Utica as NY 790.

[Jim]

I've finally finished posting a bunch of my pictures, almost all from the Amsterdam to Albany stretch, of the Thruway AET conversion.  You can go to https://www.teresco.org/pics/ and scroll all the way down to the bottom, where you'll find several links from August to December showing progress on gantry construction, signage, and toll booth demolition.  Quality is pretty poor, as I was driving for almost all and what you see were the ones that I decided reached a very low minimum standard for inclusion.

[TonyTrafficLight]

Nice photos. Is the bridge over the Mohawk in Amsterdam done yet?
Was sill under construction mid October when I crossed over it.

That route along Rt 49 from Rome going west along the north shore Oneida Lake is a nice ride to take.
Lots of small towns and hamlets along that drive.

You got lucky you didn't hit any Lake Effect snow along some of those routes.
Rt 274, 46 and 49 are a lot of fun most normal winters.

[Jim]

Still one lane closed each way on the NY 30 bridge in Amsterdam.

[machias]

I've finally finished posting a bunch of my pictures, almost all from the Amsterdam to Albany stretch, of the Thruway AET conversion.  You can go to https://www.teresco.org/pics/ and scroll all the way down to the bottom, where you'll find several links from August to December showing progress on gantry construction, signage, and toll booth demolition.  Quality is pretty poor, as I was driving for almost all and what you see were the ones that I decided reached a very low minimum standard for inclusion.

Yay! My "SOUTH" patch over an errant WEST is still there, almost 20 years later

[SignBridge]

Good to hear that NYSDOT listened to you and corrected the problem. Not always the case with those people.

[Alps]

Good to hear that NYSDOT listened to you and corrected the problem. Not always the case with those people.

SignBridge, you say that NYSDOT doesn't always listen. What has been your experience with that agency?

[cl94]

Good to hear that NYSDOT listened to you and corrected the problem. Not always the case with those people.

SignBridge, you say that NYSDOT doesn't always listen. What has been your experience with that agency?

I can't speak for his experience with Region 2, but I've had very unpleasant experiences dealing with Regions 1 and 5, both professionally and otherwise. Whoever answers the phones/emails at those offices is a very stereotypical grumpy government worker.

[SignBridge]

Good to hear that NYSDOT listened to you and corrected the problem. Not always the case with those people.

SignBridge, you say that NYSDOT doesn't always listen. What has been your experience with that agency?

LOL, oh so now you're after me today huh? NYSDOT's people can be very stubborn. Not always, but there is for example an ongoing argument with them in a neighboring community and they refuse to listen to reason. They put up new signals and reconfigured lanes at an intersection where there was no problem with traffic flow. The changes they made caused big problems to develop including blocks long traffic back-ups. Various community civic leaders have tried to talk to DOT and get them to either change it back or make additional changes to rectify the problems, and when they respond at all to the inquiries they insist that the revised set-up is correct the way it is, despite the serious traffic jams that didn't exist before. This is in contrast to the Nassau County DPW which does work well with local civic leaders, residents, etc re: issues on county roads.

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

[vdeane]

It's hard to say what's going on without knowing more about the issue, but there are design considerations other than traffic flow, and one of those could have overridden such considerations.  Perhaps there was a safety problem.  Or perhaps there was a standards issue (like what happened here - the option lane was changed to straight-only because the MUTCD does not allow option lanes with protected-only left turns).

[hbelkins]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

[Alps]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

[kalvado]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

[Rothman]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

No, they aren't prosecuted frequently since they are careful about when they use their PE stamps.

That said, NYSDOT is sued frequently enough, but I don't think the grounds are due to specific design issues that often.

[kalvado]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

No, they aren't prosecuted frequently since they are careful about when they use their PE stamps.

That said, NYSDOT is sued frequently enough, but I don't think the grounds are due to specific design issues that often.

Of course, whenever a crash occurs, NYSDOT may expect to get sued, part of a litigation culture. Especially if crash occurs after a reconstruction - and we may be dead sure that a crash will occur sooner or later.  Just thinking about that limo crash, where a pretty reasonable design at a challenging spot is
With that, I can easily point out several apparent design mistakes in the area, which go uncorrected for decades, actually cause problems, and some of them survived full road reconstruction. So I am not holding NYSDOT engineering talent at high regard. More like the opposite...

[Rothman]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

No, they aren't prosecuted frequently since they are careful about when they use their PE stamps.

That said, NYSDOT is sued frequently enough, but I don't think the grounds are due to specific design issues that often.

Of course, whenever a crash occurs, NYSDOT may expect to get sued, part of a litigation culture. Especially if crash occurs after a reconstruction - and we may be dead sure that a crash will occur sooner or later.  Just thinking about that limo crash, where a pretty reasonable design at a challenging spot is
With that, I can easily point out several apparent design mistakes in the area, which go uncorrected for decades, actually cause problems, and some of them survived full road reconstruction. So I am not holding NYSDOT engineering talent at high regard. More like the opposite...

I'm sure NYSDOT values your opinion.

Makes me wonder how many you saw were designed by consultants.

[machias]

Good to hear that NYSDOT listened to you and corrected the problem. Not always the case with those people.

SignBridge, you say that NYSDOT doesn't always listen. What has been your experience with that agency?

I can't speak for his experience with Region 2, but I've had very unpleasant experiences dealing with Regions 1 and 5, both professionally and otherwise. Whoever answers the phones/emails at those offices is a very stereotypical grumpy government worker.

The only difficulties I've ever had with NYSDOT was Region 9 when bringing up their issues with mixed case legend on guide signs.  They found "exit 105b" to be perfectly fine on NY Route 17.

The most difficult has always been the Thruway Authority. When asked about county line signs and their importance with GPS and weather alerts by county, told me in no uncertain terms they couldn't do that and suggested I should buy a map.

Regions 2, 3, and 7 have always been pleasant and responsive and if they didn't agree, they've told me why. I had a really great discussion with R3 many years ago over what constituted a control city on non-Thruway interstate approaches to the Thruway and that "Thruway" wasn't really a valid destination, hence the newer signs that say "Albany - Buffalo".

[machias]

Good to hear that NYSDOT listened to you and corrected the problem. Not always the case with those people.

SignBridge, you say that NYSDOT doesn't always listen. What has been your experience with that agency?

I can't speak for his experience with Region 2, but I've had very unpleasant experiences dealing with Regions 1 and 5, both professionally and otherwise. Whoever answers the phones/emails at those offices is a very stereotypical grumpy government worker.

The only difficulties I've ever had with NYSDOT was Region 9 when bringing up their issues with mixed case legend on guide signs.  They found "exit 105b" to be perfectly fine on NY Route 17.

The most difficult has always been the Thruway Authority. When asked about county line signs and their importance with GPS and weather alerts by county, told me in no uncertain terms they couldn't do that and suggested I should buy a map.

Regions 2, 3, and 7 have always been pleasant and responsive and if they didn't agree, they've told me why. I had a really great discussion with R3 many years ago over what constituted a control city on non-Thruway interstate approaches to the Thruway and that "Thruway" wasn't really a valid destination, hence the newer signs that say "Albany - Buffalo".

Oh, and it made a big difference in response time, after I interviewed with them while working on my civil engineering degree. I thought that R2 was going to roll their eyes and say, "oh it's *that* guy" but they didn't, but all the regions seemed more responsive after that.

[kalvado]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

No, they aren't prosecuted frequently since they are careful about when they use their PE stamps.

That said, NYSDOT is sued frequently enough, but I don't think the grounds are due to specific design issues that often.

Of course, whenever a crash occurs, NYSDOT may expect to get sued, part of a litigation culture. Especially if crash occurs after a reconstruction - and we may be dead sure that a crash will occur sooner or later.  Just thinking about that limo crash, where a pretty reasonable design at a challenging spot is
With that, I can easily point out several apparent design mistakes in the area, which go uncorrected for decades, actually cause problems, and some of them survived full road reconstruction. So I am not holding NYSDOT engineering talent at high regard. More like the opposite...

I'm sure NYSDOT values your opinion.

Makes me wonder how many you saw were designed by consultants.

You see, this is exactly what I am talking about:

engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

As for consultants... Excuses I heard also include "this is the way it is described in a book", "management doesn't want to have things changed"... Makes me wonder if NYSDOT engineering positions can  be downgraded from PE to high school diploma or equivalent, minimum wage +$1/hour without any loss...

[Rothman]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

No, they aren't prosecuted frequently since they are careful about when they use their PE stamps.

That said, NYSDOT is sued frequently enough, but I don't think the grounds are due to specific design issues that often.

Of course, whenever a crash occurs, NYSDOT may expect to get sued, part of a litigation culture. Especially if crash occurs after a reconstruction - and we may be dead sure that a crash will occur sooner or later.  Just thinking about that limo crash, where a pretty reasonable design at a challenging spot is
With that, I can easily point out several apparent design mistakes in the area, which go uncorrected for decades, actually cause problems, and some of them survived full road reconstruction. So I am not holding NYSDOT engineering talent at high regard. More like the opposite...

I'm sure NYSDOT values your opinion.

Makes me wonder how many you saw were designed by consultants.

You see, this is exactly what I am talking about:

engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

As for consultants... Excuses I heard also include "this is the way it is described in a book", "management doesn't want to have things changed"... Makes me wonder if NYSDOT engineering positions can  be downgraded from PE to high school diploma or equivalent, minimum wage +$1/hour without any loss...

Nah.  With a statement like that, you're ignorant of what work they actually do.

[kalvado]

I could cite other examples as well where NYSDOT's engineers are very intractable, and act like they are always right even when presented with evidence to the contrary.

Engineers are very hesitant to do anything outside of guidelines. The instance I always fall back to was one here in Kentucky on the AA Highway. After a number of fatal wrecks at an intersection, local leaders and residents kept requesting a traffic light be installed. The intersection didn't meet warrants for a signal, so the request was always denied. But the Transportation Cabinet secretary at the time was not an engineer. After the locals approached him, he overrode the engineers and had the signal installed.

The best advice for the locals in this situation would be to take their case to the highest non-engineer who has jurisdiction over NYSDOT.

Engineers are legally responsible for their decisions.

You made my day. Was any DOT engineer legally prosecuted in recent history?
In particular, for the case @hbelkins mentioned - installing traffic light when it is not required (not on interstate or roundabout, I assume).
The problem I see is exactly the opposite - while such responsibility exists on the books, it is not applied - but management influence is very real. So, as
@SignBridge describes, engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

No, they aren't prosecuted frequently since they are careful about when they use their PE stamps.

That said, NYSDOT is sued frequently enough, but I don't think the grounds are due to specific design issues that often.

Of course, whenever a crash occurs, NYSDOT may expect to get sued, part of a litigation culture. Especially if crash occurs after a reconstruction - and we may be dead sure that a crash will occur sooner or later.  Just thinking about that limo crash, where a pretty reasonable design at a challenging spot is
With that, I can easily point out several apparent design mistakes in the area, which go uncorrected for decades, actually cause problems, and some of them survived full road reconstruction. So I am not holding NYSDOT engineering talent at high regard. More like the opposite...

I'm sure NYSDOT values your opinion.

Makes me wonder how many you saw were designed by consultants.

You see, this is exactly what I am talking about:

engineers are doing things for the pleasure of management, population be damned. Flirting with forum limitations, I can add that this is not totally unlike issues with police.

As for consultants... Excuses I heard also include "this is the way it is described in a book", "management doesn't want to have things changed"... Makes me wonder if NYSDOT engineering positions can  be downgraded from PE to high school diploma or equivalent, minimum wage +$1/hour without any loss...

Nah.  With a statement like that, you're ignorant of what work they actually do.

I sure hope structural design folks are held to higher standards as their failures are harder to ignore. Minneapolis bridge will be remembered for decades...

[vdeane]

The toll billing saga continues.  I just got billed earlier this week by plate for a toll that had already posted to my E-ZPass account a month before (the toll was discovered in my E-ZPass transaction log, but has my plate number rather than the transponder number) via the transponder.  Ridiculous.  Now they're double billing people.  The billing system for the cashless tolling is a big fat failure.

I sent a demand to the E-ZPass service center that the duplicate charge be removed a few days ago, but have gotten no response.  And to think I thought having a transponder would save me from cashless tolling billing shenanigans.  This is exactly why I never do toll by plate - ever.  For any reason.  No matter what.  Maybe I need to apply that policy to all AET facilities period, regardless of whether they use E-ZPass or not.

I'm losing respect for the Thruway Authority very, very fast.  Two round trips since the cashless conversion, and both have taken a long time for all the charges to appear and have both been billed incorrectly.  And the Thruway has never answered an email that I've sent them.  Ever.  And their site is an insecure mess that will only use https if you manually type it in the URL (I checked with Google, lest it just be my old bookmark - anyone who visits that site by any normal means does indeed only get insecure http; and they expect people to type in account details on their contact forms?).  Setting it up to automatically use https is easy - I was able to do it in less than 5 minutes for my site, and I didn't know anything about how before that, only that it could be done.  The fact that NYSTA didn't do that tells us everything we need to know.

[Rothman]

The toll billing saga continues.  I just got billed earlier this week by plate for a toll that had already posted to my E-ZPass account a month before (the toll was discovered in my E-ZPass transaction log, but has my plate number rather than the transponder number) via the transponder.  Ridiculous.  Now they're double billing people.  The billing system for the cashless tolling is a big fat failure.

I sent a demand to the E-ZPass service center that the duplicate charge be removed a few days ago, but have gotten no response.  And to think I thought having a transponder would save me from cashless tolling billing shenanigans.  This is exactly why I never do toll by plate - ever.  For any reason.  No matter what.  Maybe I need to apply that policy to all AET facilities period, regardless of whether they use E-ZPass or not.

I'm losing respect for the Thruway Authority very, very fast.  Two round trips since the cashless conversion, and both have taken a long time for all the charges to appear and have both been billed incorrectly.  And the Thruway has never answered an email that I've sent them.  Ever.  And their site is an insecure mess that will only use https if you manually type it in the URL (I checked with Google, lest it just be my old bookmark - anyone who visits that site by any normal means does indeed only get insecure http; and they expect people to type in account details on their contact forms?).  Setting it up to automatically use https is easy - I was able to do it in less than 5 minutes for my site, and I didn't know anything about how before that, only that it could be done.  The fact that NYSTA didn't do that tells us everything we need to know.

Wow.  I haven't been double billed like that.  But, postings are taking up to ten days.  Half of a round trip to Rome I took on Thursday has shown up already...but not the other half.

When I go to E-ZPass NY, Google Chrome reports a secure connection without having to type in https.

Sorry it's such a mess.