Loon South Peak Expansion

[drjeff]

That's almost an hour out of the way. CT traffic would have to be REALLY bad to get me to do that!

I do absolutely hate getting through CT though. Back in the day you could get away with taking 84 to 684 but now it's almost as busy as 95 or the Merritt.

Other than being immediately in city traffic, the only stretch of road I hate more than any of the routes through CT is 95 in Virginia between DC and Richmond. 85 straight miles of stop and go traffic unless you go through in the middle of the night. Aggravating as hell.

84 from Hartford to Danbury way more often isn't a case of if you'll hit a traffic jam, but how many. Same thing with basically the entire length of 95, and 91, especially within say 10 miles of Hartford. Just a woefully inadequate highway system for the volume of traffic it handles more days than not

 

[deadheadskier]

I remember a time not too long ago that it was not possible to go through Hartford on 84 without having to switch lanes. Now I believe it's only the middle lane that works. Otherwise you are forced to exit or switch lanes. Same thing with 91 North. Danbury is similar with 84 and 7.

As I mentioned prior, it's really all of the left exits that cause most of the problems. Unlike a traditional highway where the left lane is for passing and higher rates of speed, middle for standard travel and right for exiting and merging, CT has both left and right lanes as merging and exiting lanes. There are essentially no passing lanes in the state.

And don't get me started on the moronic HOV design where there's a full empty lane between the HOV and Regular traffic. Why would you waste a full lane for travel like that?

So glad I don't work down in CT these days. Place is a distant 6th place ranking for New England states. Only thing I miss is a few coastal areas and the pizza.

 

[4aprice]

LOL. I always hated driving through CT to get to our MA offices from NJ. There have been a few times that I actually just stayed on the Mass Pike all the way to the NY Thruway. Longer distance wise, but much less aggravating.

Not to create too much drift but my off the cuff comment hit home. You really can't drive through CT on a Friday night. The 54 mile stretch from the NY State line to New Haven or Hartford if you take 84 are just brutal. Actually anything north of Hartford on 91 or 84 isn't bad. The construction is mostly a summer/fall issue.

But one of the routes I have taken to Lincoln is to go up the Thruway to the Mass Pike over to 91 (just north of Springfield) then up through Vermont to Woodsville NH and over 112 to Lincoln. It's about 3 hours to 91 that way really about 15 minutes longer then up through CT without traffic. Going to Boston is a different beast where CT is unavoidable. Of course going North/South in NY/NE is easy, east/west not so much.

Of course timing is key. If we get out early (like leaving NNJ at 5 am) we can make quick work of any of the routes through Ct (out of the state by about 8am) and the drive not so bad.

 

[cdskier]

That's almost an hour out of the way. CT traffic would have to be REALLY bad to get me to do that!

I do absolutely hate getting through CT though. Back in the day you could get away with taking 84 to 684 but now it's almost as busy as 95 or the Merritt.

Other than being immediately in city traffic, the only stretch of road I hate more than any of the routes through CT is 95 in Virginia between DC and Richmond. 85 straight miles of stop and go traffic unless you go through in the middle of the night. Aggravating as hell.

Right now it is about a 35-40 minute difference. I'll take 35 extra minutes driving where I'm actually moving to avoid going through CT...

Luckily I rarely need to do this drive...last time I had to go to our MA office I was there for a week and it was in the winter, so I just drove there from VT Sunday afternoon and then drove back up to VT on Friday after I left the office. No point in even going back to NJ that time!