A $1.3 Billion Project That Would Save (NY) Drivers Six Minutes Max

nyfocus.com ^ | 9/24/24 | Sam Mellins

[AbolishCSEU]

As the state’s plans to get New Yorkers out of their cars stall, Governor Hochul is championing a highway expansion in the Hudson Valley. A planned highway expansion in the Catskill region championed by Governor Kathy Hochul would save drivers one to six minutes at a cost of at least $1.3 billion, according to a new study from the state Department of Transportation, or DOT.

The project is slated for New York’s Route 17, which stretches about 30 miles from the Woodbury Common shopping center past Legoland New York and serves tens of thousands of drivers each day. The state is considering one proposal that would expand the existing two-lane highway at three locations and another that would add a lane in each direction along about half of the 30-mile stretch. The proposals would reduce crashes on the road, according to the study, which also found that it’s possible to achieve that safety benefit without widening the highway.

A New York City subway on the left, and highway traffic on the right. Flush With Biden’s Infrastructure Cash, New York Is Choosing Highways Over Public Transit Sam Mellins Hochul heralded the project last week as an opportunity to “reimagine this vital roadway into a modern highway.” This support is in line with her pattern of prioritizing highway projects: Hochul’s administration has steered billions in federal money to highways rather than mass transit and dramatically boosted the amount of state cash devoted to highways. The state’s five-year transportation plan, which focuses heavily on roads, increased spending by over $9 billion compared to the previous plan.

[AbolishCSEU]

Green new deal has a high price tag! More Politician Pork and Union Payoffs.

[rlmorel]

Hey! if 100K drivers transit that a year, and each of them is paid an average of $30 an hour that would save a total of $300K a day. At that rate, people are saved $1.3 Billion over 12 years.

It’s worth it!

Only kidding-I made all that up. But hey...don’t think THEY won’t/didn’t try that as a valid rationale to spend $1.3 billion dollars.

[BobL]

Any money spent on roads (other than, say, ‘bridges to nowhere) is FAR BETTER SPENT than money spent on transit, so I’ll give her credit when she does get it right, such as this case.

[rottweiller_inc]

i’st NY there are many beaks that need wetting

[Gay State Conservative]

I’ve driven in the Tri State area many times...but never during rush hour. If one’s commuting to NYC from the suburbs I think that commuter rail is the best bet. It’s cheaper (because you don’t pay the outrageous bridge/tunnel tolls),it’s faster (at rush hour at least),you don’t pay the outrageous parking fees,and you save wear and tear on your car.

[Shady]

Exactly! Gee, I have an idea, having driven that stretch of NY-17/I-86 many times, stop speeders!

[Wuli]

Looking to secure more Hudson Valley political support for Dims, because why add money for subways when the Dims already have the NYC vote sewed up.

[DoodleBob]

I spent decades working in NYC. I also spent a lot of time in Boston.

Boston traffic is worse, second worst on the planet next to the Beltway (though the Merritt Parkway in CT is a major contributor to Road Rage). And my experience is after the $14 billion Big Dig boondoggle.

Alternatively, the transit system in Boston is waaay better than the NYC system, and tons better than NJ Transit. Parenthetically, aside from homeschooling laws (that is, there are no laws effectively) and diners, and proximity to NY and Philadelphia, NJ is to be avoided.

If some pol says $1.4 billion, you can be guaranteed it’ll cost billions more AND probably make congestion worse. Indeed, per wiki, The Big Dig was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (US$7.4 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2020). However, the project was completed in December 2007 at a cost of over $8.08 billion (in 1982 dollars, $21.5 billion adjusted for inflation), a cost overrun of about 190%.

[9YearLurker]

Let’s see. They are importing 10s of millions of illegals per year, but don’t see a need to alleviate even current traffic bottlenecks.

I guess they plan on limiting more and more travel.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

What’s the matter with Hochul? Doesn’t she know NY drivers need EV charging stations? At today’s government price, she could build two, maybe three charging stations.

[9YearLurker]

If that weekend traffic jam keeps people from the NYC metro area traveling upstate, but instead diverts them to NJ, PA and New England, that’s a good chunk of state revenue lost.

[DoodleBob]

Btw, notwithstanding the Wikipedia quote, I’ve seen total cost estimates for the Big Dig ranging from $14bn to $24 bn here - https://interestingengineering.com/lists/7-big-facts-about-the-big-dig

The Wikipedia entry said the annual net savings to commuters was $167 million.

Ignoring the time value of money, that’s a payback period of 144 years. That encapsulates government; And leftists wonder why people post on FR.

[Does so]

“Don’t kill the job”.

[hal ogen]

Not living there and not ever wanting to travel there...meh!

[dynachrome]

10 billion and it still won’t be finished. Bribes and money laundering.

[TalBlack]

“…at a cost of at least $1.3 billion…”

LOL! They’ll be lucky to bring it in for five billion.

And since a democrat is pushing the project take a good look at where the money is going.

[rlmorel]

I am from that area, and lived through the "Big Dig" and regardless of anything else, the "Big Dig" did benefit Boston from a simple appearance and ease of navigation.

But that is where it ends.

It is abhorrent that the insane amount of money was spent, and that people from North Dakota and Mississippi had to pay for it. It is shameful.

But there was not only a gargantuan amount of grift surrounding it, where thousands of people from top to bottom skimmed off building materials and who knows what else for their own profit, not to mention the money simply ending up in people's pockets it wasn't intended for.

But there were other aspects to the "Big Dig" that caused costs to skyrocket-the involvement on the Left at every level from legal to environmental. I read where they had to do a major redesign of the Zakim Bridge (Named for another far-Left Boston political hack) across the Charles River to accommodate the migration of the Alewife, a small sardine-like fish.

Environmentalists said the wide shadow cast by the bridge would interrupt the migration of the fish. So they had to redesign major parts of it well into the construction phase to allow sunlight to shine through and reach the water. Every month of delay added $18 million dollars of interest alone, so one can only imagine the money running through the hourglass as a result of that protest by environmentalists.

Also, the construction of the elevated Expressway, a rusting, green eye-sore back in the 1950's was done so heavy-handedly by the government, land was seized, the city was split in half, people were forced to move, that the resentment echoed. They made a promise that no businesses would be closed and no residents would be forced from their houses against their will. That resulted in this odd piece of a building that still stands today, because like the old man's house in the Pixar animation "Up" they were simply forced to build around it.

Just to be clear, I am largely opposed in principle to eminent domain seizures except in time of genuine national emergency. It has been my experience that governments will say or do anything they have to in order to justify a seizure by eminent domain, especially if "someone" is going to profit by it...and as a result, cannot in general to be trusted with that power.

But these things are facts. I don't go into Boston anymore except out of necessity, but I don't miss the Expressway. Some years ago, my wife and I had taken the train in (we don't do that anymore for what should be obvious reasons) and came out near City Hall, an ugly construction. As we walked around the edge of it to face the harbor...we both stopped short.

It was the first time we had been into that part of Boston since the Big Dig had been completed, and...where before, our whole lives, had seen that rusting green Expressway, we now saw...Boston Harbor. It was startling.

And as someone who had suffered in that traffic, even to the point of being AWOL when I was in the Navy because I watched my flight from Logan to Jacksonville, FL take off from the stopped traffic, I wasn't nostalgic or sad about it.

But it fills me with anger the way the Leftist politicians like Dukakis and Tip O'Neil bartered and traded votes on various things to get it done at other people's expense.

Before the "Big Dig", I had never given that process much thought. But I sure did after that.

I could only come to the conclusion that the Big Dig was exactly, in many ways, like the arms procurement process for our military, except that with the military, there was at least a chance everyone all over the country might someday benefit from the protection a successful weapons system might bring. In the Big Dig, the money was just taken from everyone else in this country at the figurative point of a gun.

I find myself on the side of the people who deeply resent it still.

[Gaffer]

Somebody needs to look at who owns the properties along the rights-of-way or next to them. Betcha she or someone close to her owns a bunch.

[Gaffer]

Wider roads and interstate lane expansions in big cities do fuel something. They start out improving traffic flow, but then it just gives prospective commuters the feeling they can move farther out from the city or faster around-town traveling and you have the same amount of cars, etc.

I’ve watched this happen in Atlanta ever since I-285 was built and I-75/85 were expanded. Just more damn people moving in and choking them up. A constant battle.

I remember the medians on I-285 and 75/85... big, wide. Where they messed up was not putting a rail system there on all of them.

[bgill]

Cheaper and better for everyone to deport every last illegal. Less people on the roads, rents go down, less stress on the infrastructure, less schools and hospitals needed, can get into the emergency room, more toilet paper and groceries to go around, taxes can go to needed things, less crime and for the libs there would be less pollution. Win, win!