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[Jim]

Why would the driver driving from exit 25A to exit 24 have a free ride, but the driver from exit 25 to 24 still has to pay a toll?  The first driver is driving a longer distance!  This sounds completely backwards!

The reason as I recall it (minimal searching has not dug up any verification of this) is that I-88 was planned to proceed along I-890 and NY 7 to Troy.  When it was switched to end at new Thruway exit 25A, I-88 funding was used to add the third lane between 25A and 24 in exchange for traffic between 25A and any of but only 26, 25, or 24 having a toll-free ride, essentially taking an unsigned I-88 extension instead of the Thruway in those cases.

[lstone19]

The compromise for cancelling I-88 east of the Thruway was free passage from I-88 to one of Exit 24, 25, or 26. Basically put in place to avoid a toll trap and discourage people from shunpiking along US 20 or NY 7. Why they kept the toll in place for 24-25 after the conversion is beyond me, as is the reason for placing toll gantries between 25 and 26.

Only travel to/from 25A gets the free trip east of 24 or west of 26. Travel between 24 and 25 and between 25 and 26 still pays. If you travel between a point south or east of 24 to 25A, the toll to/from 24 and 25A is the same which is less than the toll to 25.

So my question would be why didn't they put a gantry at 25A to give them accurate information as to who entered or exited there rather than having to derive it from reads and lack of reads at the neighboring gantries.

[empirestate]

Some transactions from around Thanksgiving have finally posted to my account in the past two days.  Only some, though.  Just the mainline tolls around Syracuse and west - none of the virtual ticket systems or the mainline tolls around the Capital District have posted.  Looks like they might be having issues, and like they may be processing everything manually for some reason.

Same here; even within a single trip, some but not all of the transactions have posted. And even one trip from before the conversion, when the E-ZPass was read at a booth, has not posted.

[astralentity]

I just checked my EZPass account.  I have no transactions posted since 11/12.  I should at least have some showing up for the 24-26 area.

I cross checked with the pay by plate website, nothing there either.

[vdeane]

Last I checked, the virtual ticket systems west of exit 34A have posted to my account, so that part has fully processed.  Still nothing east of 34A.  I wonder if the reason the mainline gantry tolls around the Capital District haven't posted is because they still haven't posted the 25A-34A virtual ticket system - if you only know about those mainline gantries, you wouldn't know if I took I-88 or not.

I must say, I'm not happy with how long it's taking - or with the fact that the changes to billing mean that what once used to be two lines in my account is now 16.

[lstone19]

Last I checked, the virtual ticket systems west of exit 34A have posted to my account, so that part has fully processed.  Still nothing east of 34A.  I wonder if the reason the mainline gantry tolls around the Capital District haven't posted is because they still haven't posted the 25A-34A virtual ticket system - if you only know about those mainline gantries, you wouldn't know if I took I-88 or not.

You may be on to something. Others have reported seeing tolls from the 23/24 gantry and the 15-23-B3 virtual ticket section. But unless I missed it, no reports of tolls from the 24/25 and 25/25A gantries nor the 25A-34A VTS all of which would be affected by the 25A special rules. I wonder if their programming to figure out 25A is proving to be problematic. It would not surprise me if a gantry suddenly appears without fanfare at 25A so they can track the 25A entries and exits rather than trying to infer them from the lack of a scan on the other side of 25A.

[noelbotevera]

Unpopular opinion: remove all gantries between 24-26. Give everyone a free ride.

Not saying I'm an expert but I don't think NYSTA is gonna cry over losing a $0.67 (or less) toll trip.

[vdeane]

I feel like if NYSTA was interested in putting a gantry over 25A they would have just made it part of the virtual ticket system in the first place.  It's clearly one of the "high volume" interchanges selected to use mainline gantries instead.  The simple answer would be what noelbotevera posted.  Are more complicated but still simpler than what they actually did answer would be to have the virtual ticket system end west of 26, put a gantry in the middle of 25A, and put a pair of gantries on the ramps at 25 leading to/from the east.  That would have required one fewer gantry and no processing algorithms.  I have no idea why they didn't do this, unless they were hoping that people who don't regularly use exit 25A wouldn't notice that it can be used for a free ride.

[cl94]

I have no idea why they didn't do this, unless they were hoping that people who don't regularly use exit 25A wouldn't notice that it can be used for a free ride.

That is part of it. Operational inertia is certainly a factor, but NYSTA likes keeping the free ride a secret. There's a reason it's not signed anywhere.

[empirestate]

I have no idea why they didn't do this, unless they were hoping that people who don't regularly use exit 25A wouldn't notice that it can be used for a free ride.

That is part of it. Operational inertia is certainly a factor, but NYSTA likes keeping the free ride a secret. There's a reason it's not signed anywhere.

I'm guessing it's bureaucratic inertia more than anything else. To change something like this would require a lot of meetings, hearings, voting, and just general rulemaking, which is likely a more arduous and protracted process than just figuring out how to make it work operationally.

[Jim]

Unpopular opinion: remove all gantries between 24-26. Give everyone a free ride.

Not saying I'm an expert but I don't think NYSTA is gonna cry over losing a $0.67 (or less) toll trip.

I'd say that's a popular opinion, because who likes paying tolls?  But that 67 cents or less is multiplied enough times over add up to some significant money, I'm sure.  Especially 24-25 is a heavy commuter corridor in normal times.  I expect many of them, like me for my 24-27 commute, purchase the $88 annual commuter plan, and would no longer do so if the Albany-Schenectady segments became toll free.

[vdeane]

In other news, I've heard that the toll barriers are gone at exits 25 and 24.  With exit 45 already gone and the traffic cameras showing Williamsville, Lackawanna, and Canaan gone, it looks like the six priority barriers have been removed.

[Roadgeek Adam]

In other news, I've heard that the toll barriers are gone at exits 25 and 24.  With exit 45 already gone and the traffic cameras showing Williamsville, Lackawanna, and Canaan gone, it looks like the six priority barriers have been removed.

Williamsville is gone save for the headhouse. The lane alignment is unusual (2 westbound, 3 eastbound). I'd personally go 3-3 instead of 2-3. Has been gone since December 5, when they demolished the last 3 lanes on the southern end.

[vdeane]

I suspect NYSTA didn't want to widen the WB Thruway under NY 277, even though there's probably enough room.  I always thought it was odd that they didn't keep the third lane to exit 50, but I guess they always viewed that as queuing space for the barrier and not a legitimate third lane of travel.  Meanwhile, EB was already three lanes there, so they just kept it.

[webny99]

So I'm guessing the third EB lane ends somewhere in the vicinity of where the booths were?

[Jim]

I just exited EB at 24 for the first time since the construction mostly wrapped up.  All of the obsolete signs have been removed (like "Tool Booths Ahead").  What is now the weave area between where I-87 NB and I-90 EB traffic converge and the ramps to re-divide those routes and the ramps to the southern stub of the Northway and the new Tandem lot entry ramp is a total mess.  There are lane divider lines all over the place, some of which are current, some of which are insufficiently removed old lines from various construction configurations.  Even on a bright, sunny day today I really could not tell where lanes are supposed to be.  Combine that with people blowing through at 80 MPH and we have a really dangerous stretch right now.

[cl94]

I can confirm that B3 and 24 are gone, having passed through B3 on Friday and 24 on Sunday. B3 has very little evidence left beyond a widening. As of Friday, it was single-lane EB traffic, so I wasn't paying too much attention to lane lines, but removal is progressing very quickly.

24...yeah, that's a mess. Sunday afternoon was cloudy, so I could see the lane lines pretty clearly, but I see that becoming a mess in any other weather conditions.

15 has barely been touched as of Sunday (couldn't see the 16 plaza when passing through on US 6). Some work was beginning at B1 on Friday; B2, 19, and 23 were basically untouched as of the 3rd. 17 is funneling everyone through the middle 3 lanes, but with plastic lane dividers. 17 will not be removed as part of this contract.

[lstone19]

5 has barely been touched as of Sunday (couldn't see the 16 plaza when passing through on US 6).

Isn't all the traffic at 15 going through the high-speed lanes? If so, then removing the old booths should be low priority since there's no traffic going through them (except for the 16 NB entry traffic which used the far right lane of that plaza).

[astralentity]

I just exited EB at 24 for the first time since the construction mostly wrapped up.  All of the obsolete signs have been removed (like "Tool Booths Ahead").  What is now the weave area between where I-87 NB and I-90 EB traffic converge and the ramps to re-divide those routes and the ramps to the southern stub of the Northway and the new Tandem lot entry ramp is a total mess.  There are lane divider lines all over the place, some of which are current, some of which are insufficiently removed old lines from various construction configurations.  Even on a bright, sunny day today I really could not tell where lanes are supposed to be.  Combine that with people blowing through at 80 MPH and we have a really dangerous stretch right now.

Time to reconfigure that interchange..... again.

[astralentity]

Update on ezpass... my little trip out to Auburn on Saturday posted, I took the Thruway from Amsterdam to I-481, so that's correct.  Still nothing between 11/13 and 12/11.

[cl94]

What Exit 24 looked like as of 2 days ago exiting the Thruway.

[Jim]

A bunch of my post-conversion November transactions were posted to my E-ZPass account this week.  Interestingly, some of them are showing up broken down as 24-25, 25-25A, and 25A-26 or 27 (the ones with my non-commuter plan transponder) but others are grouping 24-27 as a single transaction (the ones with my commuter plan transponder).

Nothing showing yet from any December travels.

[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.

[vdeane]

It looks like the last of my charges from Thanksgiving FINALLY posted on Friday, so it took 20-26 days for everything to post (and 8-15 days for things to START posting!).  Yikes.  I hope they won't keep taking that long!

I still hate how they break everything apart.  If they're not doing it for people on the annual permit program, I don't get why they're doing it for the rest of us.  They clearly have the capability to make this not annoying... why aren't they?

Update 12/31: More on the toll billing saga - it's still taking a long time.  It took 10 days for the tolls on my drive out around Christmas to finish posting.  Meanwhile, all the mainline tolls for my drive back (and the virtual ticket systems for Syracuse west) posted - but the Albany gantries posted incorrectly (FYI, they do group 24-25A for that movement).  What will happen when the last virtual ticket system toll posts, I don't know.  Clearly this system back-processing for exit 25A is NOT working out.

[empirestate]

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.