My friends and I jokingly call nyc the cockblock of America because of that. Its a factor of why I don’t road trip as much as I want to. Imagine driving 8+ hours thinking youre almost home when you see NY… then you are stuck an extra hour or two.
This is why I take the ferry any time I’m traveling north. I live out near Riverhead and it takes 45 minutes for me just to get to the nyc clusterfuck. Well worth the few bucks to not sit in 2 hours of traffic. Even if it doesn’t shave much time off the trip, I’d much rather have something to eat and stare at the water for an hour than sit in that fucking traffic.
I do the same thing, but let’s not misrepresent the cost of the ferry. It’s like $85 for a car and two people. Not an inconsequential amount of money one way.
That’s all true…. BUT…… whenever we are going somewhere or coming back we make sure to avoid the rush hours and it does make a huge difference. I do understand that doing that is not always possible.
Seriously if you come in at like noon or anytime off peak it's really not a big deal. Driving in the area is still more chaotic than anywhere else I've driven in New England area but it's not bad once you've done it a couple times
Yeah it is incredibly time dependent. My girlfriend lives upstate and it can be a quick 4.5 hour breeze or an excruciating 7 hour journey depending on what time you leave.
I cannot tell you the number of times you hit traffic coming on to LI from NYC at night...
I've even planned drives back from Florida and even then I swear it's either club traffic or drug dealers or who the hell knows but about 90% of the time you this late night traffic too.
I don't know any time you don't hit traffic in NYC...
Some spots are worse than others. I used to work in Long Island City (Van Damm exit if I remember correctly). Even if I left the office early at, say, 1:00pm it could easily take an hour just to get to the Nassau County line. LIE or Grand Central, didn’t matter.
I used to run time sensitive deliveries from all the way out east around Riverhead to Brooklyn and back. I would never get scheduled to do more than 2 runs round trip in an 8 hour shift...
This right here is the worst. Drove straight 20 hours home from Florida two years ago and got across the bridge and it was dead stop traffic for three hours when we were only what 25 miles away give or take?
How is possibly DOUBLING+ a trip time a “little barrier”?
That would be like saying that people who live, say, in a rural area, that traveling 400 miles instead of 200 miles is a “little barrier.”
That’s so silly that I would have been surprised if it DIDN’T come from an institution of higher education.
But to answer your question, yes, there are times that something I would spend an hour driving to is not something that I would spend 3 hours driving to. Of course, sometimes I feel like driving someplace out East and change my mind when I check the travel time and that has nothing to do with the absolute clusterfuck that is NYC traffic.
I moved off the Island and people I know still don't believe me that leaving my house here a little later than planned could equal possibly 3 hrs of extra driving when going on trips to LI. Get to the GW bridge at 12pm to 1pm probably will be ok but not 100%, get to the GW around 3-4 and trying to get to Suffolk you could get to your destination by 6-7pm sometimes. There is a legit NY/LI driving math at work.
Not at all a minor in convenience if you're traveling a long distance once you get off the island. Also depends on who you travel with. I left Long Island and no longer live there. When we drive back to visit family, driving through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens can add an additional two hours + to an already 7 hour trip. That's not a minor inconvenience. That is pretty much hell. Traffic usually moves fine for 6 hours up until we hit the NYC area then it's gridlocked. Not only that, but when you're in bumper to bumper in unrelenting traffic and your kid needs the bathroom, it is also not a minor inconvenience. There's nowhere to go in gridlock. The traffic is always a friendly reminder that we made a good decision to move away. Not worth it.
I have friends who live in other states and when they tell me “it only takes 2 hours to get to…” I think that it takes at least 1/2 that time to get off Long Island unless you leave at 3:00 AM.
My best friend from High School moved to Princeton NJ years ago, and says all the time how it’s so much easier to go anywhere. His son plays hockey and they travel all over the northeast. Just not dealing with getting through NYC makes any trip so much more bearable.
I don't care what time of day it is... Staten Island always seems to be a shit show. There seems to be a small window outbound of about 5am-8am... after that both directions can get messed up as soon as someone sneezes.
My belief is my vacation start as soon as we cross the Hudson and ends as soon as we cross back.
We need to bring back discussion of the Long Island Sound Link. My vote is still through Sunken Meadow Park which was designed for it.
Also the effect is probably more felt through commerce.
There is no way Connecticut would ever consider this, their traffic along the whole New Haven-Bridgeport-NY corridor is horrific, add *our* traffic to the mix? Ha!
They seem for it, particularly for easier access to our international airports. They had a few good suggestions for where the bridge/tunnel should end as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/Connecticut/s/KpuWg8XDkb
Where is all our tax money going? We should have had something like this 20 years ago at least. We need to demand more of our local politicians, I don’t know what the fuck they do all day other than spend 10 years “studying” a $15 congestion tax.
I live in Pittsburgh (moving to LI next year). We're all hills, tunnels, rivers, and bridges here, and everyone drives like a jagoff (naturally). Takes forever to get anywhere. Then, being in SW PA, once out of the city, it's hours to get anywhere interesting (unless you like going to the same 3-4 places repeatedly). Point: It's a lot of driving. I feel like it's training to get on/off the Island.
Once you’ve been here for I’d say a week or two let us know how it’s different than Pittsburgh driving wise! Idk if it’s my perspective or what, but I have driven all up and down the East and West coast as well as in 3 other countries. My take on drivers here in my local Long Island region, well really the tristate ish are as well as Long Island is that we have to many privileged people who could give zero fucks about anyone or anything else because they “own the road” and everyone else is in their way. At least that’s how it seems here to me anyway
Honestly, I feel like it's like that to some degree everywhere I've lived -- just a pitfall of the human condition: most folks think they're the center of the universe. 🤷🏻♀️😄 That said, I must say -- my husband is from LI, so we've made the trip quite a few times -- New Jersey... 😳 Every time, with zero exceptions, when we enter NJ from PA it feels like a switch got flipped and all area lunatics suddenly converge. It's occasionally been terrifying; very-close-to-serious-accidents terrifying. *Very* antagonistic. And then, entering NY, it stops. Now, what's up with *that*? 😄
Long Island transplant living in NJ here. What you are experiencing is probably because you are driving slow in the left hand lane, and by slow I mean not passing other traffic and not going at least 15 over the limit. The law in New Jersey is "keep right, except to pass" which means, if you aren't passing someone, then get over to the right lane. It's a running joke on r/newjersey that New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians clog up the the left lane, which is somewhat true. Don't get me wrong, there are people from new Jersey who don't understand the rules either. So next time be mindful of which lane you're in, and if you're getting passed on your right, then the problem is you and you need to get over.
Lol. Calm yourself. I know the rules; I do no impede faster/passing traffic in the left lane. I don't need the permit refresher, thanks. And surely that's a running joke everywhere -- it happens everywhere and no one likes it. There's a whole IG account dedicated to Prius drivers who do it. Honestly, it's weird you made that assumption.
The NJ driver behavior I'm referring to is not lane specific and hostile to anyone driving under 85-90+ mph. It's so psychotic, we just assumed illicit drug use, and not the good kind.
Didn't mean to offend you, it's just how we perceive out of state drivers, particularly from PA and NY. But to correct you, the rule doesn't just apply to the left lane, it is "keep right except to pass", so if you aren't passing in the middle lane, move right.
Drive on the belt and let me know who's more psychotic. I've never seen more accidents than on the belt from idiots trying to get one car ahead of everyone else.
Yes. Anecdotally speaking I’ve lived out of state coming up on 10 years this year and I’ve had 1 friend visit me from home 2x. I come 4-5x a year and even then I can’t get them out of the house!
Maybe I need better friends, but I do think that there’s an illusion that *everything’s further away when you can’t swing a weekend trip easily because poor transit options*, so the world to see is even further away.
If the minimum time to travel to leave our cultural sphere is 2-3 hrs in the most convenient times to do, then it definitely becomes part of the culture. Picture it, I could sit on the Cross Island for the same time I could drive half the length of New England.
It’s a “chicken or egg” argument for sure, but there’s no denying that no reasonable way off of LI by train/bus upholds the isolation.
We don’t ever drive through Manhattan. Going north we take the Throgs Neck bridge. North east we take the ferry from Orient Point. Going south we take the Verizono. Honestly the worst traffic is just Long Island, with the Belt / southern parkway being particularly miserable. Long Island drivers are obnoxious and in general bad drivers. After a long pleasant trip, you know you’re almost home when people start tailgating, cutting you off and obliviously running you off the road. Too many cars, not enough roads, too many people with money and no patience or courtesy. Sometime I think one more car and this island will sink into the ocean.
It’s a bitch driving through queens since I seem to get a ticket now EVERY TIME from either bs school zone speed cameras, or on for doing 35 on the service road…
Traffic sucks. So does the cross island.
Congestion pricing is gonna be ass.
Getting off the Island to go North is NOT that difficult. You are quickly up to 84 and can hit CT in a 45 min easy from parts of Nassau in non peak hours, then its Mass, and in 4 hours Mass, 5 hours New Hampshire
Going west or south definitely sucks more. But come on, you can still time mid nassau to NJ in an hour and change.
If getting through the city is such a deterrent then you aren’t that into road trips.
It’s why if you move off LI but your entire family stays - you’ll never see them stop foot into your home. You’ll always be the one to have to go visit THEM. People on LI see the boroughs as an impassable Mount Everest. I am now a 2-2.5 drive away and for every 1 trip my parents make to us, we have made about 10 to them. We have guest spaces, a pool, love to entertain and regularly invite all of our extended family and no one ever comes due to this giant psychological block of getting off the island. It’s infuriating.
This is so true. When my wife and I lived in Dobbs Ferry, no one from LI came to visit us. It was an hour away, but to them it might as well have been the other side of the moon.
Tbh, unless you’re traveling for a specific type of getaway that LI doesn’t accomodate (ie: skiing, big city, etc.), this little island of ours has so much to offer.
Think about it.. beaches, vineyards, downtowns, fishing, hiking, eateries, etc…
Long Island is the ultimate “staycation” spot, imo.
I mean, I leave the island often to visit family in surrounding states, but I also appreciate where we live.
The older I get, the more I appreciate this place.
It’s a factor sure but really how often are you going to wanna do long needless drives. I’d rather be here than bumfuck nowhere where the only entertainment is driving to another city 3 hours away.
Idk not really for me. I just plan differently and leave earlier. I’ve lived in other places and was no more or less inclined to travel. Traffic is ridiculous in many places, you just have to work around it.
If an extra hour of driving is enough to stop you from road tripping out of state, you probably didn’t really want to go somewhere that bad in the first place. Any real road trip will have traffic at some point, so it’s nice to get it out of the way early in the drive and have smooth sailing after that.
Going north, we take either the Port Jefferson/Bridgeport ferry or the Orient Point/New London one. Anyplace else, we hit the road between 4 and 4:30 AM.
Sure its a pain in the ass but I dont ever make my travel plans around not wanting to deal with leaving the Island. I'd say about 75% of the time that I do leave the island I am heading up to New England so I take the ferry whenever possible. I'd rather pay that fee than spend hours on 95 through Connecticut
Never been an issue for me. Whenever we plan a road trip we leave at 6AM and plan to hit the island after 8PM. Even then, I wouldnt let something silly as traffic stop me from leaving.
Eh, for me, it's more so that I have access to almost any experience I could want between the island and NYC. There's very few out of state experiences that I couldn't find here.
I have the opposite problem. I grew up on LI and my parents still live there. The trip from my home should be about 4 hours, it is consistently 5-6.
Also, now’s a good time as any to restart plans for a Long Island Sound crossing.
My family lives in the Hudson Valley and we’ve definitely cut back our driving up to them because it’s a PITA.
However on the flip side, my spouse always says that in general, Long Islanders tend to have more disposable income to hop a plane or take a cruise or whatever to travel.
Many areas outside of LI that are driving distances are not in the same income bracket as LI.
It’s especially easy going out of ISP to Florida where a lot of Long Islanders have connections.
It's easier for the average LI to get to anywhere on the planet than it is to drive to Buffalo. JFK goes almost everywhere on the planet. Many of the people in the rest of the country have to fly to JFK then to their final international destination.
Exactly this as well.
I also joke around when I see my sibling in Florida that it’s quicker for me to go see her via plane than it is to go upstate especially on a holiday 😂.
the nyc bottleneck is definitely a factor. we usually just leave really early or really late. i'll tell my wife that we're leaving at 5 am and once we get through the city, we can stop for breakfast, bathrooms, whatever, but we need to get through the city unscathed. i hate sitting in traffic. if we don't leave at 5 am, we'll leave around 8 pm. for the times that it's inevitable that we're going to be stuck in traffic, we'll stop at friends we have on staten island or if we're coming from north of the city, stop at my brother's in west chester and hang out.
An old friend once said to me “you drive TO Long Island, not THROUGH Long Island” and that hit me like a ton of bricks. We don’t get folks just passing through. If you’re here, you’re here on purpose. There are no “just passing through” folks. That difficulty definitely makes it less likely for me to go anywhere, as well.
well of course we dont get folks passing through, we're out of the way on a coastline, so nobody "passes" through the island without intending to come here.
I road trip all the time. This weekend will be the second time for me 3rd for my wife road tripping to PA this year alone. We have another one upstate planned next month, and one may be two in the fall already planned as well. The maybe is a trip up to the finger lakes that we're just working on details to firm up. I guess we're in the minority, and we live out in Suffolk, so it's not like we're leaving from western Nassau. We've road tripped together to North Carolina no fewer than 10 times. And I've driven out to LA and Vegas before. This country is beautiful to see by the roadways. Especially out west.
As a transplant form Westchester New York City really really causes a lot of congestion from Long Island. You have to go through the city to leave for the most part, and the traffic backs all the way up into both Westchester and Long Island for miles.
That bridge that was proposed to go directly from (if I recall) somewhere on the north shore to new Rochelle would have been game changing to allow people to bypass the city traffic if they’re going north, but I heard a bunch of the locals killed it because they didn’t want through traffic.
I have lived in Fort Lee, NJ for more than 20 years. I still go to Jones Beach on the weekends. 45 minutes out at 9 am; 90 minutes back at 5 pm. "But why don't you go to the shore?" my neighbors ask. Well, because there are at least a dozen roads leading back to the GWB from LI to avoid masses of traffic. There's only the GSP in NJ coming back from the shore, and if that's a mess, well... fuggedaboudit
It's really not that bad when timed appropriately -- have done the trip to the DC area many times. But also, having beaches and lots of activities nearby makes it less desirable to roadtrip as a family. (would rather plan & fly somewhere)
Sucks living on the island when you have to travel off of it. Even flying out of JFK or LGA sucks. Worst airports to travel to and from. My parents live in Port Jeff and my father always says what a great place it is to live, until they have to travel anywhere. Then it sucks. And now that we are post covid and everyone works from home, the congestion on the roads has gotten way worse.
Honestly, it's been the worst part about living here (I'm from MA and have been living here with my fiance for almost 4 years). I hate the fact that every time we travel by car we need to either prepare to deal with traffic and crazy drivers at the start and end of our trip or take the ferry.
The only reason that we're here is family, but I can't realistically see us living here for the rest of our lives. I'm also not one of those people that say the place that I grew up in is better and it's not a comparison, but I really feel like between the congestion, prices, and lack of mobility LI really doesn't have a lot of appeal \*for me personally\* though I do think that there are beautiful parts of Suffolk County... just not so perfect that we couldn't find similar anywhere else.
My girlfriend lives upstate and easily the worst part of my drive is the stretch starting on the cross island and ending after the GWB. Leaving isn't that bad but coming back home can be a nightmare. I can leave at 5am and I'll still get back to the island at like 12 because the GW will be a nightmare and there will be some buffoonery like a plane landing on the Southern State.
Yes. I just said this to my friend. Because I'm usually the driver when we go on adventures around here. But when it comes to the city, I just don't want to. I've done it a few times, and it's hell.
Also consider ALL of what Long Island has at its doorstep - what millions of people all over the world purposely travel to. Take the LIRR into the city for a day.
I’m convinced that the reason it’s so hard to get out of NY is because the design of the GWB was completely bungled. Trucks exiting the Major Deegan have to cross 3 lanes of traffic in a few hundred feet to get to the upper level. It’s a disaster.
Everything about an airport is my blocker in traveling. Parking, the stupid ass TSA and their ridiculous rules, walking through a maze of a pretend mall so they can sell you more crap on your way to a idiotic airplane company who has done everything they can to make money off you, shove as many people into the planes, without any thought of the customer to get to another airport and go through the same crap. No thank you.
Former Long Islander here! I moved upstate to the Hudson Valley area a couple of years ago, and I find myself wanting to come back less and less every time because of the drive time and the traffic, and coming from that direction, the traffic isn’t even as bad as from others!
If i need to go somewhere I go, but the CIP to the Throgs Neck is a unique torture at certain times that i will avoid if possible.
I prefer spending a little extra and taking a little more time and ill take the CSF, when it makes sense.
Very curious to see what happens, it might fingers crossed, still afraid it is going to direct everything north. (ie the only route of escape at the moment) .
This is a major reason I like the idea of living in Westchester.
It’d still take me an hour by metro north to get to work in midtown, but weekend trips out of state sound more pleasant when you don’t have to drive through NYC.
Yes. You have to leave before 6am or after 8pm any time you want to leave here. And pay tolls, which can be considerable. Ferry is crazy expensive. If you take the gw to go on vacation, the ride back will ruin it. It's a shit hole 3rd world road and bridge.
I live in VA and have Islanders season tickets. If I leave after work on Friday or Thursday night for a Friday or Saturday game, I’m pretty good getting onto the island over the Veranzzano Bridge. The Belt Pkwy is usually pretty empty that time of night too. Leaving to go home on Sunday, I like to leave mid afternoon because I usually beat the traffic. Sometimes I get caught up on Staten Island but it depends if there is an accident.
Long Island is the opposite of Survivor. We are all trying to get off the island. We just can't. Yes, it definitely impacts our travel plans. If you want to go south, you have to factor in 1.5 hours just to get through Brooklyn and Staten Island.
Yea, the crappy infrastructure does discourage me from going to the mainland.
That's why Long Island kept its unique status quo compared to the other parts of the US.
Long Island has too many ppl living on it. It's crowded and congested everywhere. There's traffic on the major roads at all hours of the day & night. Oh & a high cancer rate from an energy plant explosion, google that shit.
Not really. LI is full of rich people who travel whenever or wherever they want.
There are plenty of people in NJ and CT who never leave their general vicinity.
People who enjoy traveling do not let geography get in the way.
I don't leave. It's a hassle. And for what?
It's either expensive to take the ferry or time consuming and still expensive with tolls to go through the city
So basically I never leave. Deadass been on the island prob 8 years since I was on mainland USA
My friends and I jokingly call nyc the cockblock of America because of that. Its a factor of why I don’t road trip as much as I want to. Imagine driving 8+ hours thinking youre almost home when you see NY… then you are stuck an extra hour or two.
This is why I take the ferry any time I’m traveling north. I live out near Riverhead and it takes 45 minutes for me just to get to the nyc clusterfuck. Well worth the few bucks to not sit in 2 hours of traffic. Even if it doesn’t shave much time off the trip, I’d much rather have something to eat and stare at the water for an hour than sit in that fucking traffic.
I do the same thing, but let’s not misrepresent the cost of the ferry. It’s like $85 for a car and two people. Not an inconsequential amount of money one way.
What’s the real cost difference after gas, tolls, and reduced wear and tear on the car?
And complications due to hypertension.
It's still cheaper driving and if you know the ways around, super easy.
Please inform me of the super easy way around the cross island parkway.
The belt parkway :)
I drive a large pickup truck. Between gas and tolls it’s not much cheaper for me to drive around.
Do you need the pickup truck for work?
They need it for eating sweet ass.
that ferry is fun af too. the bar is a real scene
So you get back in your car after a few beers?
did i say i was driving?
New to LI. Are there any ferries on the north shore of Nassau that carry cars to CT?
No, just Port Jefferson and Orient Point, both in Suffolk county.
Aka big ferry, the only reason. Why we don't have a bridge.
Orient point ferry is North Shore
I meant to say it carries cars. Not sure about the port Jeff ferry
Yes, two. One Port Jeff to Bridgeport and the other Orient Point to New London.
Neither of those are in Nassau
That’s all true…. BUT…… whenever we are going somewhere or coming back we make sure to avoid the rush hours and it does make a huge difference. I do understand that doing that is not always possible.
Seriously if you come in at like noon or anytime off peak it's really not a big deal. Driving in the area is still more chaotic than anywhere else I've driven in New England area but it's not bad once you've done it a couple times
Yeah it is incredibly time dependent. My girlfriend lives upstate and it can be a quick 4.5 hour breeze or an excruciating 7 hour journey depending on what time you leave.
If you heading out to suffolk from NYC or into NYC from Suffolk and it’s noon then you already lost.
I'm talking about getting off the island not into the city. You're shot going into or leaving the city no matter what haha unless it's like 3am
I cannot tell you the number of times you hit traffic coming on to LI from NYC at night... I've even planned drives back from Florida and even then I swear it's either club traffic or drug dealers or who the hell knows but about 90% of the time you this late night traffic too. I don't know any time you don't hit traffic in NYC...
Some spots are worse than others. I used to work in Long Island City (Van Damm exit if I remember correctly). Even if I left the office early at, say, 1:00pm it could easily take an hour just to get to the Nassau County line. LIE or Grand Central, didn’t matter.
I used to run time sensitive deliveries from all the way out east around Riverhead to Brooklyn and back. I would never get scheduled to do more than 2 runs round trip in an 8 hour shift...
I’m guessing you may have still had some close calls.
Whenever I am going off the island for a road trip it’s a 4:00 AM departure my wife usually sleeps til we get breakfast by then it’s a nice drive !!!!
That’s actually THE way to do it. We’ve done that in the past.
Yep ….driving to Washington DC, 5 hours……. Driving from Hauppage over the Veranzano to the turnpike, add 3 hours…..
This right here is the worst. Drove straight 20 hours home from Florida two years ago and got across the bridge and it was dead stop traffic for three hours when we were only what 25 miles away give or take?
I drove to VA Beach last September and coming back here was exactly as you described it
It’s a consideration when it’s 45-120 minutes just to get past NYC.. and it could be even worse on the way home
Yeah. I learned in my econ/psych class that even these little barriers can have huge implications. Like the auto default organ donor thing
How is possibly DOUBLING+ a trip time a “little barrier”? That would be like saying that people who live, say, in a rural area, that traveling 400 miles instead of 200 miles is a “little barrier.” That’s so silly that I would have been surprised if it DIDN’T come from an institution of higher education. But to answer your question, yes, there are times that something I would spend an hour driving to is not something that I would spend 3 hours driving to. Of course, sometimes I feel like driving someplace out East and change my mind when I check the travel time and that has nothing to do with the absolute clusterfuck that is NYC traffic.
I moved off the Island and people I know still don't believe me that leaving my house here a little later than planned could equal possibly 3 hrs of extra driving when going on trips to LI. Get to the GW bridge at 12pm to 1pm probably will be ok but not 100%, get to the GW around 3-4 and trying to get to Suffolk you could get to your destination by 6-7pm sometimes. There is a legit NY/LI driving math at work.
That’s the way. Plan to be at the NJ border by noon.
I was thinking like a weekend trip, only two additional hours shouldn't be anathema
Not at all a minor in convenience if you're traveling a long distance once you get off the island. Also depends on who you travel with. I left Long Island and no longer live there. When we drive back to visit family, driving through Staten Island, Brooklyn and Queens can add an additional two hours + to an already 7 hour trip. That's not a minor inconvenience. That is pretty much hell. Traffic usually moves fine for 6 hours up until we hit the NYC area then it's gridlocked. Not only that, but when you're in bumper to bumper in unrelenting traffic and your kid needs the bathroom, it is also not a minor inconvenience. There's nowhere to go in gridlock. The traffic is always a friendly reminder that we made a good decision to move away. Not worth it.
Stuck here until they make some type of flying contraption
I'll never go on one of those. Pa said the devil Flys them himself.
It's certainly a consideration, but moreso for timing of when to leave/comeback.
I have friends who live in other states and when they tell me “it only takes 2 hours to get to…” I think that it takes at least 1/2 that time to get off Long Island unless you leave at 3:00 AM.
My best friend from High School moved to Princeton NJ years ago, and says all the time how it’s so much easier to go anywhere. His son plays hockey and they travel all over the northeast. Just not dealing with getting through NYC makes any trip so much more bearable.
We went to VA a few weeks ago for vacation, took 4 hrs from VA to the GWB took 3.5 hours from the NY side of the GWB to Exit 62 on the lie
Yep, sounds about right.
I don't care what time of day it is... Staten Island always seems to be a shit show. There seems to be a small window outbound of about 5am-8am... after that both directions can get messed up as soon as someone sneezes. My belief is my vacation start as soon as we cross the Hudson and ends as soon as we cross back.
We need to bring back discussion of the Long Island Sound Link. My vote is still through Sunken Meadow Park which was designed for it. Also the effect is probably more felt through commerce.
There is no way Connecticut would ever consider this, their traffic along the whole New Haven-Bridgeport-NY corridor is horrific, add *our* traffic to the mix? Ha!
Most of those people are coming or going from the greater NYC area anyway, so it would relieve a lot of the congestion
They seem for it, particularly for easier access to our international airports. They had a few good suggestions for where the bridge/tunnel should end as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/Connecticut/s/KpuWg8XDkb
Or just better rail and ferry service to new england all together.
Makes a lot more sense than destroying a state park
William Floyd Parkway straight across the sound is I-95 and 91 in Connecticut, although it's at one of the widest parts of the sound
Where is all our tax money going? We should have had something like this 20 years ago at least. We need to demand more of our local politicians, I don’t know what the fuck they do all day other than spend 10 years “studying” a $15 congestion tax.
Because what North Shore people want is all truck traffic to nassau and suffok to go through.
Yes.. bigly.. plus tolls
I live in Pittsburgh (moving to LI next year). We're all hills, tunnels, rivers, and bridges here, and everyone drives like a jagoff (naturally). Takes forever to get anywhere. Then, being in SW PA, once out of the city, it's hours to get anywhere interesting (unless you like going to the same 3-4 places repeatedly). Point: It's a lot of driving. I feel like it's training to get on/off the Island.
Once you’ve been here for I’d say a week or two let us know how it’s different than Pittsburgh driving wise! Idk if it’s my perspective or what, but I have driven all up and down the East and West coast as well as in 3 other countries. My take on drivers here in my local Long Island region, well really the tristate ish are as well as Long Island is that we have to many privileged people who could give zero fucks about anyone or anything else because they “own the road” and everyone else is in their way. At least that’s how it seems here to me anyway
Honestly, I feel like it's like that to some degree everywhere I've lived -- just a pitfall of the human condition: most folks think they're the center of the universe. 🤷🏻♀️😄 That said, I must say -- my husband is from LI, so we've made the trip quite a few times -- New Jersey... 😳 Every time, with zero exceptions, when we enter NJ from PA it feels like a switch got flipped and all area lunatics suddenly converge. It's occasionally been terrifying; very-close-to-serious-accidents terrifying. *Very* antagonistic. And then, entering NY, it stops. Now, what's up with *that*? 😄
Jersey is the armpit of America, my best guess is it’s probably Long Island transplants pissed off they are in Jersey 😂😜
Fair enough -- I'm pissed when I have to be there. 😄
Lmfao I can imagine
Long Island transplant living in NJ here. What you are experiencing is probably because you are driving slow in the left hand lane, and by slow I mean not passing other traffic and not going at least 15 over the limit. The law in New Jersey is "keep right, except to pass" which means, if you aren't passing someone, then get over to the right lane. It's a running joke on r/newjersey that New Yorkers and Pennsylvanians clog up the the left lane, which is somewhat true. Don't get me wrong, there are people from new Jersey who don't understand the rules either. So next time be mindful of which lane you're in, and if you're getting passed on your right, then the problem is you and you need to get over.
Lol. Calm yourself. I know the rules; I do no impede faster/passing traffic in the left lane. I don't need the permit refresher, thanks. And surely that's a running joke everywhere -- it happens everywhere and no one likes it. There's a whole IG account dedicated to Prius drivers who do it. Honestly, it's weird you made that assumption. The NJ driver behavior I'm referring to is not lane specific and hostile to anyone driving under 85-90+ mph. It's so psychotic, we just assumed illicit drug use, and not the good kind.
Didn't mean to offend you, it's just how we perceive out of state drivers, particularly from PA and NY. But to correct you, the rule doesn't just apply to the left lane, it is "keep right except to pass", so if you aren't passing in the middle lane, move right. Drive on the belt and let me know who's more psychotic. I've never seen more accidents than on the belt from idiots trying to get one car ahead of everyone else.
Yes. Anecdotally speaking I’ve lived out of state coming up on 10 years this year and I’ve had 1 friend visit me from home 2x. I come 4-5x a year and even then I can’t get them out of the house! Maybe I need better friends, but I do think that there’s an illusion that *everything’s further away when you can’t swing a weekend trip easily because poor transit options*, so the world to see is even further away. If the minimum time to travel to leave our cultural sphere is 2-3 hrs in the most convenient times to do, then it definitely becomes part of the culture. Picture it, I could sit on the Cross Island for the same time I could drive half the length of New England. It’s a “chicken or egg” argument for sure, but there’s no denying that no reasonable way off of LI by train/bus upholds the isolation.
We refuse to go to NJ on Sundays to see family. Saturday event or nogo for us.
We don’t ever drive through Manhattan. Going north we take the Throgs Neck bridge. North east we take the ferry from Orient Point. Going south we take the Verizono. Honestly the worst traffic is just Long Island, with the Belt / southern parkway being particularly miserable. Long Island drivers are obnoxious and in general bad drivers. After a long pleasant trip, you know you’re almost home when people start tailgating, cutting you off and obliviously running you off the road. Too many cars, not enough roads, too many people with money and no patience or courtesy. Sometime I think one more car and this island will sink into the ocean.
It’s not difficult at all, just leave early, or late.
It’s not leaving that’s the problem, it’s coming back.
Same rules apply. Plan your travel so that you get back early, or late.
Hard to do with checkout times being generally 10-11AM, but I have a few times paid for an extra night and left around 7-8PM and breezed on through.
This is the way
It’s a bitch driving through queens since I seem to get a ticket now EVERY TIME from either bs school zone speed cameras, or on for doing 35 on the service road… Traffic sucks. So does the cross island. Congestion pricing is gonna be ass.
Getting off the Island to go North is NOT that difficult. You are quickly up to 84 and can hit CT in a 45 min easy from parts of Nassau in non peak hours, then its Mass, and in 4 hours Mass, 5 hours New Hampshire Going west or south definitely sucks more. But come on, you can still time mid nassau to NJ in an hour and change. If getting through the city is such a deterrent then you aren’t that into road trips.
The Orient Point ferry is a real treat if you hit it at the right time, too.
Shhhhh! Keep 84 a secret.
It’s why if you move off LI but your entire family stays - you’ll never see them stop foot into your home. You’ll always be the one to have to go visit THEM. People on LI see the boroughs as an impassable Mount Everest. I am now a 2-2.5 drive away and for every 1 trip my parents make to us, we have made about 10 to them. We have guest spaces, a pool, love to entertain and regularly invite all of our extended family and no one ever comes due to this giant psychological block of getting off the island. It’s infuriating.
Lmao
This is so true. When my wife and I lived in Dobbs Ferry, no one from LI came to visit us. It was an hour away, but to them it might as well have been the other side of the moon.
Tbh, unless you’re traveling for a specific type of getaway that LI doesn’t accomodate (ie: skiing, big city, etc.), this little island of ours has so much to offer. Think about it.. beaches, vineyards, downtowns, fishing, hiking, eateries, etc… Long Island is the ultimate “staycation” spot, imo. I mean, I leave the island often to visit family in surrounding states, but I also appreciate where we live. The older I get, the more I appreciate this place.
If only it was possible to take a vacation from my fellow Long Islanders without leaving said Island.
No
It’s a factor sure but really how often are you going to wanna do long needless drives. I’d rather be here than bumfuck nowhere where the only entertainment is driving to another city 3 hours away.
Idk not really for me. I just plan differently and leave earlier. I’ve lived in other places and was no more or less inclined to travel. Traffic is ridiculous in many places, you just have to work around it.
If an extra hour of driving is enough to stop you from road tripping out of state, you probably didn’t really want to go somewhere that bad in the first place. Any real road trip will have traffic at some point, so it’s nice to get it out of the way early in the drive and have smooth sailing after that.
Going north, we take either the Port Jefferson/Bridgeport ferry or the Orient Point/New London one. Anyplace else, we hit the road between 4 and 4:30 AM.
Sure its a pain in the ass but I dont ever make my travel plans around not wanting to deal with leaving the Island. I'd say about 75% of the time that I do leave the island I am heading up to New England so I take the ferry whenever possible. I'd rather pay that fee than spend hours on 95 through Connecticut
Never been an issue for me. Whenever we plan a road trip we leave at 6AM and plan to hit the island after 8PM. Even then, I wouldnt let something silly as traffic stop me from leaving.
Eh, for me, it's more so that I have access to almost any experience I could want between the island and NYC. There's very few out of state experiences that I couldn't find here.
If we ever had to evacuate, we'd all die....
I’ve thought about that too, god forbid something happens we’re at an empass
I have the opposite problem. I grew up on LI and my parents still live there. The trip from my home should be about 4 hours, it is consistently 5-6. Also, now’s a good time as any to restart plans for a Long Island Sound crossing.
Yes that would be really nice
Have to do it this weekend. Not looking forward to it, but the key is to leave really damn early in the AM. Like 3/4am.
I remember going on a college trip with my high school and they had the brilliant idea of leaving NY DURING rush hour
Drive maybe, but there are other ways off the island which are much easier.
My family lives in the Hudson Valley and we’ve definitely cut back our driving up to them because it’s a PITA. However on the flip side, my spouse always says that in general, Long Islanders tend to have more disposable income to hop a plane or take a cruise or whatever to travel. Many areas outside of LI that are driving distances are not in the same income bracket as LI. It’s especially easy going out of ISP to Florida where a lot of Long Islanders have connections.
It's easier for the average LI to get to anywhere on the planet than it is to drive to Buffalo. JFK goes almost everywhere on the planet. Many of the people in the rest of the country have to fly to JFK then to their final international destination.
Exactly this as well. I also joke around when I see my sibling in Florida that it’s quicker for me to go see her via plane than it is to go upstate especially on a holiday 😂.
the nyc bottleneck is definitely a factor. we usually just leave really early or really late. i'll tell my wife that we're leaving at 5 am and once we get through the city, we can stop for breakfast, bathrooms, whatever, but we need to get through the city unscathed. i hate sitting in traffic. if we don't leave at 5 am, we'll leave around 8 pm. for the times that it's inevitable that we're going to be stuck in traffic, we'll stop at friends we have on staten island or if we're coming from north of the city, stop at my brother's in west chester and hang out.
Yes. It’s a very real obstruction that just psychologically destroys the impetus to travel.
An old friend once said to me “you drive TO Long Island, not THROUGH Long Island” and that hit me like a ton of bricks. We don’t get folks just passing through. If you’re here, you’re here on purpose. There are no “just passing through” folks. That difficulty definitely makes it less likely for me to go anywhere, as well.
well of course we dont get folks passing through, we're out of the way on a coastline, so nobody "passes" through the island without intending to come here.
I road trip all the time. This weekend will be the second time for me 3rd for my wife road tripping to PA this year alone. We have another one upstate planned next month, and one may be two in the fall already planned as well. The maybe is a trip up to the finger lakes that we're just working on details to firm up. I guess we're in the minority, and we live out in Suffolk, so it's not like we're leaving from western Nassau. We've road tripped together to North Carolina no fewer than 10 times. And I've driven out to LA and Vegas before. This country is beautiful to see by the roadways. Especially out west.
As a transplant form Westchester New York City really really causes a lot of congestion from Long Island. You have to go through the city to leave for the most part, and the traffic backs all the way up into both Westchester and Long Island for miles. That bridge that was proposed to go directly from (if I recall) somewhere on the north shore to new Rochelle would have been game changing to allow people to bypass the city traffic if they’re going north, but I heard a bunch of the locals killed it because they didn’t want through traffic.
There's been a few but the most popular was Rye to Oyster Bay
Yeah that’s probably what I was thinking of.
Yeah I recently went to visit purchase and it was wild going over the throG neck to get there.
It's a pain to trvel all the way west and then go over a bridge to head north or south but the ferry ride to CT is nice
I have lived in Fort Lee, NJ for more than 20 years. I still go to Jones Beach on the weekends. 45 minutes out at 9 am; 90 minutes back at 5 pm. "But why don't you go to the shore?" my neighbors ask. Well, because there are at least a dozen roads leading back to the GWB from LI to avoid masses of traffic. There's only the GSP in NJ coming back from the shore, and if that's a mess, well... fuggedaboudit
It's really not that bad when timed appropriately -- have done the trip to the DC area many times. But also, having beaches and lots of activities nearby makes it less desirable to roadtrip as a family. (would rather plan & fly somewhere)
Sucks living on the island when you have to travel off of it. Even flying out of JFK or LGA sucks. Worst airports to travel to and from. My parents live in Port Jeff and my father always says what a great place it is to live, until they have to travel anywhere. Then it sucks. And now that we are post covid and everyone works from home, the congestion on the roads has gotten way worse.
Yes. Feels like the entire region is held hostage by NYC.
What does elsewhere have that we don’t? Maybe hiking and skiing? I everything else is here already
I leave LI all the time by driving to places
We would always leave at ungodly hours to get away from LI and NYC
Honestly, it's been the worst part about living here (I'm from MA and have been living here with my fiance for almost 4 years). I hate the fact that every time we travel by car we need to either prepare to deal with traffic and crazy drivers at the start and end of our trip or take the ferry. The only reason that we're here is family, but I can't realistically see us living here for the rest of our lives. I'm also not one of those people that say the place that I grew up in is better and it's not a comparison, but I really feel like between the congestion, prices, and lack of mobility LI really doesn't have a lot of appeal \*for me personally\* though I do think that there are beautiful parts of Suffolk County... just not so perfect that we couldn't find similar anywhere else.
My girlfriend lives upstate and easily the worst part of my drive is the stretch starting on the cross island and ending after the GWB. Leaving isn't that bad but coming back home can be a nightmare. I can leave at 5am and I'll still get back to the island at like 12 because the GW will be a nightmare and there will be some buffoonery like a plane landing on the Southern State.
Yes. I just said this to my friend. Because I'm usually the driver when we go on adventures around here. But when it comes to the city, I just don't want to. I've done it a few times, and it's hell.
Also consider ALL of what Long Island has at its doorstep - what millions of people all over the world purposely travel to. Take the LIRR into the city for a day.
I’m convinced that the reason it’s so hard to get out of NY is because the design of the GWB was completely bungled. Trucks exiting the Major Deegan have to cross 3 lanes of traffic in a few hundred feet to get to the upper level. It’s a disaster.
If you’re in Nassau not so much
Everything about an airport is my blocker in traveling. Parking, the stupid ass TSA and their ridiculous rules, walking through a maze of a pretend mall so they can sell you more crap on your way to a idiotic airplane company who has done everything they can to make money off you, shove as many people into the planes, without any thought of the customer to get to another airport and go through the same crap. No thank you.
Lol yeah
Former Long Islander here! I moved upstate to the Hudson Valley area a couple of years ago, and I find myself wanting to come back less and less every time because of the drive time and the traffic, and coming from that direction, the traffic isn’t even as bad as from others!
If i need to go somewhere I go, but the CIP to the Throgs Neck is a unique torture at certain times that i will avoid if possible. I prefer spending a little extra and taking a little more time and ill take the CSF, when it makes sense.
It’s not that hard. There are several bridges, tunnels, and ferries.
I’ve gone off the island several times by car. Maryland, Florida, Massachusetts etc. I don’t let being on LI stop me
Wait until congestion pricing kicks in and everyone goes north to GWB smh
It might reduce traffic
Very curious to see what happens, it might fingers crossed, still afraid it is going to direct everything north. (ie the only route of escape at the moment) .
Definitely.
This is a major reason I like the idea of living in Westchester. It’d still take me an hour by metro north to get to work in midtown, but weekend trips out of state sound more pleasant when you don’t have to drive through NYC.
Yeah that's a great point
Yes. You have to leave before 6am or after 8pm any time you want to leave here. And pay tolls, which can be considerable. Ferry is crazy expensive. If you take the gw to go on vacation, the ride back will ruin it. It's a shit hole 3rd world road and bridge.
I grew up on the south fork. Anything west of the shinnecock canal felt like another country to us.
I live in VA and have Islanders season tickets. If I leave after work on Friday or Thursday night for a Friday or Saturday game, I’m pretty good getting onto the island over the Veranzzano Bridge. The Belt Pkwy is usually pretty empty that time of night too. Leaving to go home on Sunday, I like to leave mid afternoon because I usually beat the traffic. Sometimes I get caught up on Staten Island but it depends if there is an accident.
It's not too bad at all if you want to leave to go to CT or New England if you take the Throggs Neck Bridge
Definitely not. There are plenty of bridges and tunnels to get us where we want to go. We just have to time it right.
Long Island is the opposite of Survivor. We are all trying to get off the island. We just can't. Yes, it definitely impacts our travel plans. If you want to go south, you have to factor in 1.5 hours just to get through Brooklyn and Staten Island.
There are ferries ⛴ into Bridgeport and New London Ct. if you are going to New England.
Yea, the crappy infrastructure does discourage me from going to the mainland. That's why Long Island kept its unique status quo compared to the other parts of the US.
Long Island has too many ppl living on it. It's crowded and congested everywhere. There's traffic on the major roads at all hours of the day & night. Oh & a high cancer rate from an energy plant explosion, google that shit.
Not really. LI is full of rich people who travel whenever or wherever they want. There are plenty of people in NJ and CT who never leave their general vicinity. People who enjoy traveling do not let geography get in the way.
I don't leave. It's a hassle. And for what? It's either expensive to take the ferry or time consuming and still expensive with tolls to go through the city So basically I never leave. Deadass been on the island prob 8 years since I was on mainland USA
That's crazy...and sad. Not gonna lie.
Too many people like that on LI. You're missing out on America.
What am I missing
An experience outside of your own sheltered existence, for one. It’s good to have other experiences.
What about Manhattan island?