Future
The remainder of NY 17 west of I-87 will be designated as I-86 after the remaining at-grade sections are eliminated and the highway is brought up to Interstate Highway standards. The conversion was originally expected to be complete by 2009, and later by 2012; however, a lack of funding for the necessary upgrades has pushed the target date as far back as 2018. Temporary signs mark the route as "Future I-86" where it is not already designated as I-86. Cost estimates for the I-86 renovation ranged from $550 million to $900 million in the early 2000s. Two projects to improve sub-standard sections of NY 17 are currently in development or under construction. The first covers the 5.5 miles (8.9 km) of NY 17 between the current east end of I-86 and exit 58 in Lowman. As part of the project, three discontinuous sections of County Route 60 (CR 60)—Brant Road, Oneida Road, and Old NY 17—will be linked together and several at-grade intersections on NY 17 will be eliminated. Two of the three at-grade junctions—the east junction with Brant Road and the west junction with Oneida Road—were permanently closed on March 24, 2010, to allow construction to begin on the new alignment of CR 60 between the two locations. The $84.7 million project is expected to be completed in mid-2012.
The second of the two involves improvements to the interchange with I-81 in Binghamton near the stretch named "Kamikaze Curve". Work on the Prospect Mountain project, as it is known by NYSDOT, is projected to begin in mid-2011 and last until early 2013. The projected total cost of the project is $193.2 million. Other projects that need to be completed to extend I-86 eastward include the removal of at-grade intersections from exit 58 to exit 59 in Chemung, the elimination of at-grade intersections in the Catskills between exits 84 and 87, and other interchange improvements in the Catskills. One junction in the Catskills, an at-grade intersection in Parksville signed as exit 98, was replaced by a $96 million, 3-mile (4.8 km) bypass of the hamlet in late 2011. The eastbound lanes of the new highway opened to traffic in September; the westbound section was finished in November.
Read more about this topic: Interstate 86 (east)
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New periods of pain.”
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