WPCNR JamBusters. News Comment By John F. Bailey. September 18, 2006: It’s gone on long enough, Department of Transportation! Let’s wake up and serve the public instead of driving White Plains drivers insane — and creating hazardous traffic conditions and doing nothing about it.
The tear-your-hair-out, take-your-life-in-your-hands entrance Westbound onto I 287 in White Plains adjacent Ebersole Skating Rink for motorists departing White Plains via Westchester Avenue, Broadway and Bloomingdale Road continues into its fourth week. (Picture taken September 11, 2006.) Where’s a State Trooper where you need one?Photo by WPCNR Undercover Traffic
To avoid this absurd boondoggle, motorists leaving White Plains on Westchester Avenue, or leaving The Westchester Mall, should continue eastbound on Westchester Avenue until they reach Bryant Avenue. You make a left on Bryant, cross over I-287, and make a left onto Westchester Avenue, and take the Westchester Avenue fork, instead of the I-684 entrance. Continue about a quarter of a mile and you will see a clear exit to I-287 West, just before the Exit 7 mess above. You’ll be able to safely get up to speed in a normal entry lane, and avoid about a 20 minute delay in rush hour.
Motorists are forced into a three-lane merge into one to enter the Interstate adjacent to Ebersole Skating Rink, however they have no merge lane. They must make a full stop and start from a standstill to enter the stream of vechicles However, does the DOT and New York State station a New York State Trooper Car to supervise the merge — and act as an slow down to traffic — as New Jersey and Connecticut routinely do — no.
Partly in response to WPCNR pointing out this absurd traffic condition three weeks ago, the DOT has put up two electric signs urging motorists on the I-287 Westbound to “Slow Down,” that’s it. There is also an electric sign on the ramp leading to the bridge saying “Ramp Work — Use Alternate Routes.” What a joke? How about saying what the alternate routes are?
I hereby apply to replace the $100,000-a-year patronage hack who writes the copy for the DOT signs. A chimpanzee could do it better.
How about writing: “Alt to I-287, Straight, Left @ Bryant Ave” on the sign off Bloomingdale Avenue? How about on the “Slow Sign,” writing “Traffic entering right. Prepare to Stop” — as they do in Pennsylvania.
The way the DOT is managing thisWhite Plains, roadwork leaves me little confidence in their ability to manage a Tappan Zee makeover, a high speed rail construction on I-287, or anything of the sort.
And, please, could the New York State Troopers do just a little traffic management on major construction projects where motorists are subjected to treacherous merges? They are conspicuously absent at construction projects on major arteries across the state. New York State Troopers have been notoriously underutilized (if present at all), when construction projects not only create dangerous situations, but create long delays debilitating the mental abilities and sanity of drivers.
It is high time the DOT and the State Troopers worked together to manage construction projects safely and sanely for motorists by assigning state troopers to police and supervise merges.
However I would also single out the NYPD and the Port Authority Police for similar neglect of traffic management on construction in and around New York City environs. (As a person who drove through the decade long Bruckner Traffic Circle reconstruction, I have credentials to say this.) Port Authority mismanagement of toll plaza traffic patterns is legendary. Have you ever seen Port Authority Police conducting traffic direction in a New York Toll Plaza? I never have.