Office of Operations
photos of traffic merging onto congested highway, congestion in snowstorm, variable message sign, cargo, variable speed limit sign in a work zone, and a freeway at night
21st Century Operations Using 21st Century Technologies

Traffic Bottlenecks

Combating Bottlenecks

New York

Calming "the perfect storm" of commuter and weekend get-away traffic.

Background: "Notoriously significant backups" occur for commuters during weekday peaks, including also on Fridays, when the "perfect storm" of commuters and weekend get-away traffic to the Adirondacks occurs.

Bottleneck Project: I-87 at SR 7. Staff requested the Albany TMC to videotape the merge movements of route 7 with I-87, and the mainline traffic on I-87 north and south of this merge. After reviewing the videotape and conducting field observations, staff discussed possible remedies ranging from adding additional advance signing, to ramp reconstruction. A meeting is planned for September 2007 to pursue this further.