New York – The bottleneck coming eastbound on Route 17 on a Sunday afternoon is bad enough on a good August day, but coupled with the construction going on at the Exit 120 area where the lanes narrow to one, the road can turn into a sweltering parking lot.
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The Times Herald-Record sent a reporter into the thick of the traffic Sunday, when special events in the region bode poorly for the average summer traveler headed back to New York City.
Coming from Monticello, where people gathered for the 40th anniversary of the Woodstock festival, the reporter is glad to have made it onto the highway with no delays.
Despite some slowing down around the Wurtsboro exit, traffic on Route 17 moves well through Sullivan County and most parts of Orange County until coming to a near crawl at Exit 118 at Fair Oaks.
The reporter glances at the clock in his car:
5:11 p.m.
An SUV swerves off the highway at a space in the guardrail. It jumps over the grass divide onto Route 17M, which runs parallel to Route 17.
“Idiot,” the reporter thinks.
The thought is immediately followed by, “Why didn’t I think of that?”
5:16 p.m.
A motorcycle riding on the shoulder of the road passes. The reporter sighs.
5:20 p.m.
Sweat forms on reporter’s back and down his leg beneath his jeans, but he refuses to turn on the air conditioner. Nearly every other vehicle, on the other hand, has its windows up and its air conditioner running.
A sign appears for Exit 119 Pine Bush, a half-mile ahead.
5:33 p.m.
Traffic is so slow, the reporter can read the garbage on the highway: One snack bag says “Bamba.” There’s also a hubcap and a sprinkler nozzle. A flashing arrow indicates the road ahead will narrow.
5:35 p.m.
A dark blue Chevy SRX next to the reporter refuses to let him into the lane.
More sweat. More pain shoots up the reporter’s leg from having to shift his foot so many times from accelerator to break.
It took nearly a half hour to travel about 10 miles.
Woodbury police report there are also major delays around Woodbury Common Premium Outlets, about 20 miles ahead, and the Thruway is reportedly backed up for as much as 30 minutes near Kingston.
“Volume,” says a senior State Thruway dispatcher, when asked what the cause of the backup was. “Every Sunday it’s the same thing during the summer months.”
Probably the biggest bitul torah of our generation are the millions of hours that frumme yidden from the City collectively spend city in traffic driving every Thursday to the mountains and then back on Sunday nite or monday morning. and if you tell me that most of the drivers are listening to taped shiurim or sitting in vans and busses studying shaas, I have a bridge called the “tappan zee” to sell you.
That dark SUV that darted across the median sure looks like a mishlanu.
What irked me the most about this article was the Bamba snack found on the side of the road. Typical chazerim.
i always listen to toRAH TAPES ON THE WAY UP….please be don lcof zchus of clal yisroel
I agree and that is why we vacation in our village beginning on thursday….i return to my office on tuesday….i do not drive with those commoners….Lav Dafka…learn children….adopt
Whoms suppit idea was to do the construction during the summer when everyone is going up to the mountins??!!
wake up early monday morning and drive back
you can get home every sunday in 2 hours or less by completely avoiding the 17 and the thruway,
take the 42 north till the end [appx 10 miles from monticello],turn left on rt.97,will become 6 south,turn into 23 south,will become 3 west into the lincoln tunnel.
have been using this for years,never ever had traffic the longest time it took to get to nyc was 2 3/4 hours,try it
That is why miami beach is full of NYers
Miami beach has ny’ers because of the beach genious. If there was a beach on rt 17 instead of bamba snack there would be another 200,000 heimishe drivers and it would take us another 6 additional hour to get to our two bedroom, mosquito infested,smelly bungalow that we paid 6000 for this summer.
Never again.
If the city is so horrible that you feel you have to spend half of every summer sitting in traffic to get away every weekend, it’s time to move somewhere else year round.
the reason why there is so much more traffic is simple . in the last thirty years since i have been driving the amount of licensed drivers have tripled , therefore when there is a traffic tie up you will have to wait that much longer.
sorry guys but here in montreal the traffic is just as bad coming from the laurentions. Except that its only 45 min from the city without traffic. toronto isnt any better.
Does anyone think or dream this contruction – which is actually abt 6 miles long – will not be there next year? It surely will be. They have torn up the whole area.
Better: Who says you have to work? Stop commuting and working.
“An SUV swerves off the highway at a space in the guardrail. It jumps over the grass divide onto Route 17M, which runs parallel to Route 17.”
That must have really been a smart SUV! Afterall it could drive by itself?!?!?! WITHOUT A DRIVER?!!
Chaverim…on Sunday you have visiting day almost every week; all the fine gentlemen and occasional ladies who come to ask for funds are also driving – usually only one person in the car. Add to that the constant construction that State and local transportation officials feel have to be done to make the summer inhabitants feel less welcome (besides the vile anti semitic rants on the Record website) ; try driving through Broadway in Monticello with all the dirt and broken roads. No wonder Sullivan County is like a depressed third world country. If all the frum yidden found a more hospitable place – just for argument’s sake, say, Coney Island – we could develop a true Gan Eden there. Let those who want to make us uncomfortable upstate chew on the dirt.
Anyone remember Reb Yom Tov Erlich’s song “Country” with its refrain “Di country is far lernen nisht gemacht”?
Hey everybody. This is GOLUS! Stop wishing it was Gan Eden. G-d willing, we’re not going to be here much longer and soon enough we’ll be complaining about the summer traffic from the Galil back to Yerushalayim 😉
#7 , isn’t that through port jervis?
also, how about the rockaways? they have beaches there.
yeshivas too!