65 MPH? (Northway)

[Mike Moroney]

>> >As to highest POSTED speed: the Adirondack Northway used to be posted at
>> >90 MPH. I remember riding up that way with Dad a few times. And the station
>> >wagon (with about a 32 gallon gas tank) had no trouble holding that speed.
>> > from Mole End Mark Terribile
>>
>> Can someone check this?!! I have traveled the northway since (slightly
>> before) it was opened to the public, and don't ever remember the posting
>> being over 65. About ten years ago NY messed with a metric speed limit and
>> had 90kph postings in several places, is that what you remember?

>Well, It was a while ago ... about '66 or so, I imagine, and I would have
>been 9 years old, but I don't think that I could have confused 65 and 90.
>I MIGHT have the Northway confused with some other road: two lanes each way,
>wide grass median, shoulders not too fancy. No concession/restaurant type
>rest stops, but picnic area type stops. Lots of trucks -- tandems, I think,

There are very few picnic rest stops on the Northway. The ones on the Thruway
are the restaurant type.

>but they may have on been the Thruway leg of the trip. In '66, I don't think

Sounds like the Thruway to me. I've never seen tandem trailers in NYS anywhere
except the Thruway. They used to have triple trucks at one time! (Or were
they lost freight trains?)

>that they were playing metric with the signs, especially since there was only
>the one number. I recall that we paralleled the NYS Barge Canal (successor
>to the Erie of musical fame) for a ways.

Thruway.
...
>And I remember reading that the Thruway and the Northway were exempted from
>the maximum speed limit laws, each being operated by an authority that was
>responsible for building and maintaining a road that would be safe at that
>speed.

>The Thruway was around long before the Interstate system. So was the Northway.

The Thruway was around long before the Interstate system. The Northway was
built as part of the Interstate system, it wasn't completed until about 1967.
Otherwise, it would be (still) a toll road. The Thruway was built and still
operated under the Thruway authority, a quasi-independant authority who
maintains the road and collects the toll.

Conclusion: I believe that the trip remembered was the Thruway. It may be
possible it had a 90mph speed limit at one time since it has many of its own
rules (like the tandem trailers) but it definitely was not the Northway.
I don't know as much about the Thruway, but I would remember a 90mph limit
on the Northway.

Perhaps your father didn't want to admit he was speeding when you saw the
speedo at 90 so he said that was the speed limit? :-)

Mike Moroney
..decwrl!rhea!jon!moroney