Spotlight Vol. 8, No. 17: Fifty Years of the New York State Thruway

By Neysa Pranger, Public Affairs Director, RPA

Growing up outside of Syracuse, driving to school to Michigan (through Buffalo and Canada), living in Albany, and finally settling in New York, I've had plenty of opportunities to get to know and even love a particular highway called the New York State Thruway, which is celebrating its 50th anniversary next year.

The road stretches from the Bronx to Buffalo and on to Ohio and is one of the most traveled highways in the US. I've contributed my fair share of road wear: one year in particular I drove 25,000 miles on the Thruway for work as I supervised offices in all the major cities along the route. I know the rest stops, the exits, the undulation of the roadway and the scenery.

When driving I would often listen to books on tape and sometimes get distracted, missing my exit. More often than not I realized it not because of an exit number gone by but because of an unfamiliar tree or a curve in the road that I didn't recognize.

Once, I traveled the Thruway in college on a trip to Massachusetts. On our way our fifteen passenger van hit black ice, swirled around the roadway a few times and was brought to a gentle gliding stop in the grassy snowy median, clear of rocks or other obstructions. We drove off, miraculously unscathed. We followed the salt truck (the Thruway has its own dedicated fleet of service equipment) after that.

But I never fully appreciated the Thruway until I started traveling to other countries. I was aghast at how terrible the road systems were. A trip from San Sebastian to Bilbao, Spain (prior to that country's massive infrastructure upgrades) that looked on the map like it would take about an hour ended up being three. A straight roadway, it was not. But on the Thruway, the quickest way from here to there is usually a straight, well maintained road where you can truly keep to a good clip.

This highway that figured so intimately in my personal story has played a big part in the state and region's story as well. Over its history, the Thruway has served the same historic purpose the railways and Erie Canal did in the late 19th Century - that of providing a critical link between the Port of New York and the economies of Upstate and all of New England and the Midwest. That link continues today allowing increased trucking efficiencies and critical interconnectivity from Niagara Falls to the Major Deegan.

In providing this link, the Thruway has contributed uniquely to the explosion of growth in many areas. The Hudson Valley is a good example. The roadway crosses the Hudson River in one place-- the Tappan Zee Bridge-- a historic and important crossing that opened up the west side of the Hudson and contributed to major population influxes into Rockland and Orange Counties. The population in Rockland, for example, nearly tripled between 1950 and 1970, going from 90,000 to 230,000, most of which was fueled by the Thruway's expansion.

A roadway ahead of its time, the Thruway today remains well-traveled and well maintained. By the time the Federal government passed the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, recognizing the need for an interstate system, New York and New Jersey had already built the Thruway and NJ Turnpike, operating them as toll facilities. While this meant that the roadways missed out on an infusion of cash from the federal government, today they continue to operate through the user-fee system, keeping the Thruway independent and sustainable.

In many ways, it is a shame that the toll model employed today by the Thruway, and many other roadways around the globe, has not prevailed here in the United States. Instead we face federal shortfalls in funding and are ever-reliant on the gas tax to maintain our vital highways. As the Federal Reauthorization process gets underway and the nation begins to debate how to fund our transportation networks, it's nice to be able to point to a good model right here - the New York State Thruway.