New York State Thruway
System of controlled-access highways within the U.S. state of New York / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The New York State Thruway (officially the Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway and colloquially "the Thruway") is a system of controlled-access highways spanning 569.83 miles (917.05 km) within the U.S. state of New York. It is operated by the New York State Thruway Authority (NYSTA), a New York State public-benefit corporation. The 496.00-mile (798.23 km) mainline is a toll road that extends from the New York City line at Yonkers to the Pennsylvania state line at Ripley by way of I-87 and I-90 through Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo. According to the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, the Thruway is the fifth-busiest toll road in the United States.[3] The toll road is also a major route for long distance travelers linking the cities of Toronto and Buffalo with Boston and New York City.
New York State Thruway | |
|---|---|
| Governor Thomas E. Dewey Thruway | |
 Map of New York with the Thruway mainline in red; other components of the Thruway system are in blue | |
| Route information | |
| Maintained by NYSTA | |
| Length | 496.00 mi[1] (798.23 km) Mainline only |
| Existed | June 24, 1954 (June 24, 1954)[2]–present |
| Component highways | |
| Restrictions | No explosives (including in cargo) between exits 9 and 11 No commercial vehicles allowed on the Garden State Parkway Connector |
| Major junctions | |
| South end |  I-87 at the Bronx–Yonkers city line |
| Major intersections |
|
| West end |  I-90 at the New York–Pennsylvania state line in Ripley |
| Location | |
| Country | United States |
| State | New York |
| Counties | Westchester, Rockland, Orange, Ulster, Greene, Albany, Schenectady, Montgomery, Herkimer, Oneida, Madison, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, Ontario, Monroe, Genesee, Erie, Chautauqua |
| Highway system | |
A tolled highway connecting the major cities of New York was first proposed in 1949. The first section of Thruway, a 115-mile stretch from Lowell to Rochester , opened on June 24, 1954. By December 23, 1960, all 559 miles of the original Thruway system were open.[4] The remainder of the mainline was opened in 1955, and many of its spurs connecting to highways in other states and the Canadian province of Ontario were built in the 1950s. In 1957, much of the Thruway system was included as portions of Interstate 87 (I-87), I-90, and I-95. Other segments became part of I-190 and I-287 shortly afterward. Today, the system comprises six highways: the New York–Ripley mainline, the Berkshire Connector, the Garden State Parkway Connector, the New England Thruway (I-95), the Niagara Thruway (I-190), and the Cross-Westchester Expressway (I-287). The portion of I-84 in New York was maintained by the Thruway Authority from 1991 to 2010, but it was never part of the Thruway system and is currently maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT).
The Thruway formerly utilized a combination of ticket-based and barrier-based tolling. From 2016 to 2018, all flat-rate barriers on the Thruway system transitioned to open road tolling, which replaced cash payment with an all-electronic tolling system using E-ZPass and toll by mail. On November 13, 2020, both ticket systems on the Thruway were converted to open road tolling. The Garden State Parkway Connector, the Cross-Westchester Expressway and the section of the mainline in and around Buffalo are toll-free. Motorists with E-ZPasses receive a greater discount on the toll-by-mail rate than out-of-state E-ZPass members do.[5] The Thruway is partly subsidized by the tolls, whereas other parts are subsidized by NYSDOT, a 50/50 for the toll-free areas, and cashless/tolled areas.