Appropiate Roads

How NY State is Connected By Roads

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Most times when you look at maps, they contain a lot more information then just roads. Most maps have parks, water bodies, road names and numbers. Lots of data to make the map useful. Yet, that distracts from the main purpose of roads — a circulatory system for the state’s commerce, to allow goods and people to move freely across the state.

As you will see, Highway Systems could almost be maps of human veins and arteries. Terrain plays a role in highway systems, though modern highways can blast their way through almost any barrier, climb any hill, cross any water body, to be fully connected. Highways go where people have historically chosen to engage in commerce.

Expressways, Primary Arteries.

These are the most traveled and most important arteries of NY State, that allow commerce to flow across state. Not too surprising, but shows how cities across our state are connected.

Clear Morning

Various NY State Cities.

Many Upstate Regions have similar looking arterial systems. There is an urban street grid, then a twisty suburban street grid, with major arterial surrounding the cities, often only partially completed after 1973 when Nelson Rockefeller canceled most major urban highway projects due to the recession and increased concern about urban expressway impacts. The arterial system around Binghamton is particularly interesting, as a reflection of the deep alluvial valleys and rugged terrain that surrounds this relatively small city.

Autumn Skies

Dusk

Queer Lake

Labrador Pond

Baneberry

Morning walk

Where I Want to Drop A Rather Large Boulder

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.. As a kid, I always loved those marble tracks, where you would drop a ball, and it would bounce all around, until it came to a stop at the end of the track.

Bounce!

… I think it would be fun to drop a large boulder size marble on the top of the I-787 “Circle Stack” also known as a “Compact Urban Grade Seperated Interchange” in Downtown Albany, to find out where it would go.


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… This could be a great way to spend Albany City Taxpayer dollars!

Childhood Dreams, Adult Nightmares

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As a child I dreamed the city of the future would look a lot like the State Office Campus, located Uptown, next to SUNY Albany. I envisioned a world where people could commute freely from home and to work and shopping without ever stopping at a traffic light.


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Cities would consist of networks of one lane streets, where cars would freely merge in and our of the traffic pattern without ever stopping. Traffic would always be free flowing, there would never be any congestion. Fuel prices would inexpensive, cars would be quiet and non-polluting. Roads would be safe to drive and there would never be any car accidents. Its a world that really does not exist.


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While in later years, sidewalks and crosswalks where installed across the the ring road, but literally anyone who tries to cross these three lanes in each direction arterials, is taking their lives in their own hands. There is the constant noise and pollution from circulating cars coming and leaving the state office campus. Those unfamiliar with the campus will find themselves driving around in circles, try to get where they want to go.


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The reality is the state office campus is a pretty hideous place. My childhood dreams of a city without stoplights or traffic control besides merge lanes, is not a place where anyone really would want to live, much less visit or recreate in it. In a world where the automobile is so dominate is not a desirable place for humans to be. Its also not a particularly good place for a limited planet where we should be conserving and not wasting resources.


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