Transportation System
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PART 4 ORANGE COUNTY’S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM As detailed in Part 3, Orange County’s People, Places, and Economy, people, businesses, and visitors depend on Orange County’s multimodal transportation network to access daily needs, get to work and school, attend meetings, and ship freight. People travel in personal vehicles for most of their trips in Orange County, but at peak periods, buses play an important role in moving large volumes of people from Orange County to employment centers outside the county, and trucks and delivery vehicles need roads to get goods into, out of, and through Orange County. This section summarizes the roads, bridges, rail lines, and bicycle and pedestrian facilities used by Orange County’s residents, visitors, and businesses, as well as the public transportation services and freight transportation services that operate over this infrastructure. | 75 ORANGE COUNTY LRTP 2045 OVERVIEW OF THE IN THIS SECTION TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM 68 Overview of the Transportation System 87 Performance of Orange County’s Transportation Network Roads and Highways 101 Vulnerabilities, Risks, and Opportunities Orange County has more than 2,800 centerline miles of roadway. The roads that comprise the network fall under the jurisdiction of the New York crossing the Hudson River into Dutchess State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) County, and continues east into Connecti- and the New York State Thruway Authority cut. Aside from passing lanes on major (NYSTA) (which together operate and maintain uphill grades, I-84 has two lanes in each about 14 percent of the centerline miles of road- direction through Orange County, although way in the county), Orange County (11 percent), there are three lanes each way east of U.S. Army and other state agencies (10 percent), US 9W across the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge. and forty two municipalities (65 percent). From the Pennsylvania border to US 6 near Three major highways provide high-speed, Middletown, I-84 carries about 30,000 high-capacity connections between Orange vehicles per day. I-84 adds traffic at each County and the rest of the United States.1 interchange east of US 6, reaching 53,000 vehicles per day, on average, at I-87 and I-87 starts at the Canadian border south of 72,000 vehicles per day, on average, on Montreal, joins the New York State Thruway the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge crossing the at Albany, and then runs south parallel to Hudson River into Duchess County. the Hudson River, crossing the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge into Westchester New York Route 17 starts at I-87 in Harriman County before continuing south into New and runs northwest parallel to the former Erie York City. There are two interchanges in Railroad Main Line route into Sullivan County. Orange County at Route 17 (Exit 16) and at The highway has two through lanes in each I-84 (Exit 17). South of Route 17, I-87 has three direction, with the exception of a short stretch lanes in each direction and carries more than between Exit 122A (Fletcher Street) and Exit 125 90,000 vehicles on an average day. North of (South Street), where there are three through Route 17, I-87 has two lanes in each direction. lanes in each direction. The highest travel About 50,000 vehicles travel on the section volumes on Route 17 are between Exit 123 between Route 17 (Exit 16) and I-84 (Exit 17) on (US 6/Route 17M in Goshen) and Exit 130A an average day, and average traffic volumes (US 6 in Woodbury), with 60,000 to 64,000 drop to 44,000 vehicles per day north of I-84. vehicles on an average day. Between Exit 120 (Route 211) and Exit 121 (I-84), Route 17 also I-84 crosses the Delaware River from Penn- carries about 60,000 vehicles on an average sylvania into Orange County at Port Jervis, day. Route 17 is being upgraded to Interstate passes Middletown and Newburgh before Highway System design standards and will 1 NYSDOT Traffic Data Viewer accessed October 2019 https://www.dot.ny.gov/tdv. 76 | PART 4: ORANGE COUNTY’S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ORANGE COUNTY LRTP 2045 be able to carry an “I 86” designation when serve intra-county rather than inter-county construction projects related to this upgrade travel. Examples of urban collectors are Car- are completed. penter Avenue in the City of Newburgh and There are three other basic types of roads in Monhagen Avenue in the City of Middletown. Orange County: Non-Limited Access Arterial System: Limited-access arterials—roads with exits, Local System: Local roads provide access to such as interstate highways and other roads land and serve short trips. Service for through intended for long-distance travel—provide traffic on these streets is generally inefficient. unhindered travel with free-flowing traffic. If there is heavy congestion on higher func- Non-limited access arterials—roads that do tional class facilities, local roads sometimes not require an entry ramp—are intended to become short cuts. The use of navigation move through traffic, not provide access technology can further worsen this problem, for local traffic. Routes 17K and 300 in the as most traffic apps can identify where traffic Town of Newburgh and Route 211 in the Town jams are in real-time and offer alternative of Wallkill are non-limited access arterials. routes. This can result in reduced safety and Having a lot of development along arterials quality of life along local roads not designed compromises the ability to move through for heavy traffic. This activity is apparent traffic. Adding local trips to through trips on on roads like Old Temple Hill Road in Vails an arterial causes congestion and safety Gate, Dolsontown Road in Wawayanda and problems. Access management practices Cheechunk Road in Goshen. are intended to address these issues. In many Collector System: In urban areas, the cases, past (and current) land use decisions collector system may service land identified have led (and are leading) to congested for residential purposes as well as providing arterials with many commercial curb cuts, connections between local streets in residen- and sometimes even residential driveways. tial neighborhoods and the arterial system. All of these things reduce the ability to carry In rural areas, the collector routes generally through traffic smoothly. PART 4: ORANGE COUNTY’S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM | 77 ORANGE COUNTY LRTP 2045 Figure 20. Orange County Roadway Network Ulster County N Sullivan County Dutchess County Putnam County Pike County, PENNSYLVANIA Sussex County Westchester LEGEND County Major Highways County Road NYS Routes NEW JERSEY Rockland County U.S. Highways Waterbodies Streams Passaic County 05102.5 MILES Metro-North Port Jervis Line Source: Orange County Planning Department. 78 | PART 4: ORANGE COUNTY’S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM ORANGE COUNTY LRTP 2045 National Highway System The National Highway System (NHS) is a set of roads intended to serve as the backbone for the nation’s economy, defense, and mobility, developed by the U.S. Department of Transportation in cooperation with states, local officials, and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPO). There are 316 miles of NHS roadway in Orange County, all owned by NYSDOT. The NHS includes the following routes in Orange County (see Figure 21): All of Interstates 87 and 84 in Orange County; All of US 6, US 9W, and US 209 in Orange County; All of Route 17 in Orange County; All of the Palisades Interstate Parkway (New York State Reference Route 987). Figure 21. National Highway System in Orange County Ulster County N Sullivan County Dutchess County Putnam County Pike County, PENNSYLVANIA Sussex County Westchester LEGEND County State Route County Road Waterbodies NEW JERSEY Streams Rockland County Designated National Highway System Roadway Passaic County 05102.5 MILES Source: New York State Department of Transportation PART 4: ORANGE COUNTY’S TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM | 79 ORANGE COUNTY LRTP 2045 The following routes are designated as a NHS Intermodal Connector to New York Stewart International Airport (SWF): Route 747, Route 207 and Route 300 from I-84 (Exit 5A) to I-84 (Exit 7), as well as Breunig Road from Route 207 into the airport. NHS Principal Arterials include all roads with the functional classification of “Principal Arterial” (as determined by NYSDOT and the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA)) that were not already designated as part of the NHS when the Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21) legislation was signed into law in July 2012. The following roadways are designated as NHS Principal in Orange County: NY 208, NY 94 and NY 32 between I-84 (Exit 5) and I-84 (Exit 10); and Route17K from Route 17 to Route 9W. All NHS routes must comply with federal regulations including requirements for design standards, contract administration and oversight, advertising/junkyard control, and data collection and reporting to satisfy the requirements of the National Highway Performance Program (NHPP), as described in the section “Perfor- mance of Orange County’s Transportation Network” below. Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET) routes are identified by the Department of Defense and are intended to aid the movement of military supplies and personnel in times of need. In Orange County, the following route is designated as part of the STRAHNET: Route 17, US 6, and Route 293 from I-87 to the United States Military Academy (West Point). National Highway Freight Network miles, about 90 percent of which are part of the Interstate Highway system. As defined by the Fixing America’s Surface Transportation (FAST) Act, the purpose of the Non-PHFS Interstates are also included in National Highway Freight Program (NHFP) is to the NHFN so that it captures the entirety of improve efficient movement of freight on the the Interstate System.