New York State Route 747
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| NY Route 747 |
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| Formed: | 2007 | ||||||||||||
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| South end: |  NY 207 in Little Britain |
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| Major junctions: |
 I-84 in Newburgh |
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| North end: |  NY 17K in Montgomery |
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| Counties: | Orange | ||||||||||||
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New York State Route 747 will become New York's newest state highway when Exit 5A on Interstate 84 is completed and opened later in 2007. It is currently Orange County Route 54, known locally as Drury Lane in the towns of Montgomery, Newburgh and New Windsor in Orange County.
When completed, the road will provide easy access to Stewart International Airport via a connecting road which is currently under construction. The lack of such access has long been seen as an obstacle to the airport's development. The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey is taking over from former private lessees National Express Group later in the year with the intent of realizing long-held hopes of making the airport the New York Metropolitan Area's fourth major airport; improved access to the airport is seen as essential to that goal.
Drury, which divides the airport property from what is now Stewart State Forest, save for a small corridor along the road near the interstate, was long the line in the sand for local environmental activists who opposed any development to its west. Construction of the highway involved significant relocation of some of the route for these and other issues.
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[edit] Route description
The entire route runs through wooded land that has remained undeveloped since being seized for a planned expansion of the airport in the early 1970s.
747 will begin at the current junction of Drury and NY 207 near the Grange Hall at the center of the onetime hamlet of Little Britain. A traffic light will be installed at the intersection.[1]
It will remain a two-lane road along a new alignment through the wooded area between the airport and the state forest. At the junction with the access road, it will expand to a four-lane divided route from there to I-84.[1] Here it passes the western end of the airport's main runway, and sometimes large C-5 cargo planes from Stewart Air National Guard Base can be seen taking off right above the road. While one more traffic light has been allowed in this section, development here will likely be limited since much of the land to the west is either wetlands or part of the FAA-mandated Runway Protection Zone, a 45-acre (18-ha) trapezoid in which no building is allowed.
The road climbs slightly into the Town of Newburgh and then to the exit. A new overpass is being built; the old one will be dismantled. The exit takes the form of a three-quarters diamond interchange; there is no access from 747 south to 84 westbound due to wetlands issues.
The ramp from westbound 84 to 747 goes over a small bridge built to protect the Catskill Aqueduct from the vibrations of passing trucks. The presence of the aqueduct, which carries 40% of New York City's water supply and runs right along side the road just north of 84, forced the construction of a new section of road a short distance north of the interstate. Route 747 will here deviate from the historical route of Drury Lane, bend into the Town of Montgomery and reach NY 17K, its northern terminus, at what is currently the intersection with Stone Castle Road.[1] The section of Stone Castle north of 17K has itself been slightly relocated to provide for a more optimal location for the intersection, at which another traffic light will be erected.[1]
The remaining section of Drury, which had the only houses and businesses along the road's entire length, will now end in a cul-de-sac near the new road and the aqueduct.[1] Despite this plan, a new Valero convenience store and gas station has been opened at the current intersection of 17K and Drury to take advantage of interstate traffic coming off the exit.
[edit] History
The construction of Route 747 is the culmination of a lengthy regional controversy about the airport and the role it should play in the local economy. Before the 1970 closure of Stewart Air Force Base, Drury Lane was just another two-lane rural north-south route in the farmlands west of the base.
[edit] Development controversy
Plans initiated by then-governor Nelson Rockefeller changed that. With supersonic transport (SST) considered at the time to be the next major development in air travel, Rockefeller wanted New York to have an airport that could handle both the SSTs and regular jets. Accordingly, plans were drawn up for a major expansion of the airport.
The state moved to condemn much of the land between Drury and Maybrook in order to more than double Stewart's size. Families that had lived there since the Revolution fought bitterly. Eventually they were all evicted, but only after the state had promised never to develop the land and American SST development was canceled due to rising fuel costs.
In the years that followed, environmental and business activists in the region clashed over what to do with the 7,400 acres (30 km²) west of Drury. The former saw the recreational and conservation possibilities of keeping it a protected area; the latter pointed to ideal real estate in a region that was beginning to lose its job base.
The privatization of the airport in 2000 led the state to finally begin construction of the interchange, after Governor George Pataki designated much of the western lands as Stewart State Forest. It was stalled for three years by a lawsuit filed by several national and local environmental groups alleging that required environmental reviews were not properly conducted. On November 21, 2005, a compromise was reached in which most of the land that had not been designated as part of the state forest was and 400 acres (1.6 km²) near the exit was made available for development.[2] Construction of the exit and the surrounding roads proceeded apace.
[edit] Construction
Drury Lane as it was could not serve to bring the kind of traffic a major airport would handle was a major undertaking. The road would have to be widened to at least four lanes and realigned. The presence of the aqueduct also complicated matters greatly. New York City's Department of Environmental Protection insisted that any new roads over the aqueduct bridge it to protect the aging pipeline from damage that vibrations from trucks passing overhead could cause.
Since Drury crosses the aqueduct north of the interstate on relatively level ground, a bridge would have added considerable expense to the project. However, a federally-required 1999 value engineering study recommended instead rerouting Drury to make a four-way intersection at Stone Castle and 17K. While at the time there were some other issues seen as holding this up, eventually this was the option chosen.
The access road required some deep cuts to keep it level at the intersection with Drury/747. Bill Gorton, NYSDOT's regional design engineer, compared it to the initial construction of I-84. "We tell our young engineers to take a good look at what we're doing here because chances are they won't see anything like this again in their careers", said Rashid Shariff, DOT's engineer in charge.[3]
The project will cost $49.9 million. Over one million cubic yards (765,000 m³) of dirt have been moved. A quarter of that will be used to fill a ravine the road crosses; the rest will be used as needed on the airport property. As of February 2007, it is 57% done; completion is expected by the end of the year.[3]
[edit] Major intersections
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This section contains a table that is missing mileposts for one or more junctions. You can help by adding the missing mileposts. |
| County | Location | Mile | Road(s) | Notes |
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| Orange | New Windsor | 0.00 | NY 207 |
Southern terminus. |
| Town of Newburgh | 2.5 | I-84 |
Exit 5A (I-84). Under construction; expected to open later in 2007. | |
| Town of Montgomery | NY 17K |
Northern terminus. |
| Legend | |||||
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| Crossing, no access | Concurrency termini | Decommissioned | Unconstructed | Closed | |
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e Rife, Judy; February 11, 2007; "Traveling through the new Route 747"; Times-Herald Record; retrieved February 12, 2007.
- ^ Kissam, Sandra; November 22, 2005; http://www.frontiernet.net/~sparc/sk_statement.html Statement by Sandra Kissam at SPARC Coalition Press Conference at Little Britain Grange]; SPARC website; retrieved September 16, 2006.
- ^ a b Rife, Judy; February 11, 2007; "Drury Lane airport interchange project is right on schedule"; Times-Herald Record; retrieved February 12, 2007.
