How New York has changed, as told by Thruway tolling data

[jmyrlefuller]

https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/05/20/how-new-york-has-changed-as-told-by-thruway-tolling-data-1284948

by Bill Mahoney
May 21, 2020

The New York State Thruway Authority maintains a database for each of the exit plazas on the tolled portions of the roads it maintains, including I-87 between Woodbury and Albany and much of I-90 between western Massachusetts and Erie, Pennsylvania. POLITICO analyzed this data set, which includes information on the number of cars entering by hour and the routes they each took.

The number of vehicles on the road has plummeted, which is not surprising. But the data also provides some specific details about life under stay-at-home orders, the kind of raw material historians of the pandemic will examine to piece together how New York responded to an unprecedented lockdown.

First, the big picture: In April 2019, 12.867 million trips were taken on the tolled portion of the Thruway. In April 2020, there were 5.396 million trips.

Those cars drove an aggregate 491 million miles in April 2019. That fell to 197 million miles a year later.

(excerpt)