Why are NY SR numbers so jacked up? Two things I noticed: Around Lake George area, the main SR number has a A, D, L, and W variant…as I recall. What does this mean, and why not give these routes unique numbers? Is there a method to the madness?
Also, around the larger Cooperstown / Mohawk Valley area, I guess it is: Feel free to correct me, but I believe SR 28 was once the main highway through this area from the Albany region to Binghamton. Now, SR 28 became I-88. However, it still bears the SR 28 markers. That’s fine, but I noticed so does the main road to Cooperstown and the main road off other exits of I-88. Doesn’t this get quite confusing?
Shouldn’t NY use the monickers “SR 28” and “SR 28A” to keep things straight, especially for us bringing you tourist revenue? (I keep thinking how would a tow truck ever find me if I broke down?)
I grew up a hundred feet from Route 9. It’s basically the old Indian path (then British road) from Manhattan to Montreal (it’s the famous Broadway, BTW).
Because of its fame and associations, it made sense to number some parallel routes — both US (such as 9W, for “west”) and state (such as 9A, Route 9’s “little sibling” in Westchester County; or, 9N, I’m guessing for “north,” another sibling along Lake George).
I-88 has never been anything but I-88. However, there’s a short distance of SR28 that becomes part of I-88 for a few miles east of Oneonta. It’s not unusual for roads to have two designations, if it makes sense to route the state road on the highway for a while. People following SR28 will be led onto the highway and off it where it diverges.
For instance, I-890 is also NY-7 for a few miles in Schenectady.
Most of the alphabetized numbers are residues from the early days before the 1930 state highway renumbering after the feds created the Highway System in 1927.
The Interstate System was built over, next to, and around lots of the two-lane state highways over decades. When a route was built over only in part, that part was doubled numbered because the rest of the route continued its existence and people needed to have that continuity to follow it to their destination. It would be far more confusing for a route number to disappear halfway home.
It’s even called Broadway on street signs, at least as far north as Peekskill. North of that, it’s typically called things like “Albany Post Road.”
(I’m sure you know that Van Buren’s hometown — “[Old] Kinderhook”— helped popularize the phrase “ok,” now probably the most universal word in humanity.)