Web site helps commuters flow
By Judy Rife
Times Herald-Record
[email protected]
Hudson Valley travelers have a new tool to use in planning their business and leisure trips in the metropolitan region.
It's called Trips 123 and it's free – no registration, no pop-ups, no gimmicks – at
www.trips123.com . It is, after all, your tax money at work.
"Our goal is to encourage a more informed traveler with a single access point for information," said Robert Bamford, manager of the Trips 123 project for the New York State Department of Transportation at Transcom in Jersey City.
In practical terms, this means one-stop shopping: no more back and forth among multiple Web sites to determine whether you should take the bus or the train or drive – and then, which bridge or tunnel is the better option. The real-time traffic and transit information on Trips 123 is updated around the clock for 29 counties in New York, Connecticut and New Jersey, going as far north as Orange and Dutchess in the Hudson Valley.
At 8 a.m. Friday, for example, the site displayed a red X in Dutchess County. A click on the X indicated a 7:49 a.m. accident with injuries was blocking a lane of Route 9 at Verplanck Avenue in Beacon – a potential delay for commuters driving to the Metro-North station. By 8:15 a.m., the red X was gone.
It also offers a trip planner – think Map Quest for mass transit – that gives travelers step-by-step instructions on how to get from point-to-point on bus, train, subway and ferry.
"Making it easier for people to travel throughout the metropolitan region includes giving them confidence about knowing how to use mass transit,'' said Jennifer Post, a DOT spokeswoman. "And because thousands of people travel in and out of New York City every day to the Hudson Valley, Connecticut and New Jersey, it makes perfect sense for us to take a broad, regional approach."
The schedules of 40 of the 67 public and private carriers in the Trips 123 coverage area have already been integrated into this "Transit Advisor." Others – Tappan Zee Express, Orange-Westchester Line, Newburgh-Beacon Bus, Dutchess Loop, Short Line – are being added regularly to expand the trip planner's reach.
The site, still a work in progress, is being developed through an $11.5 million grant that the DOT secured from the federal government. It is one of four awarded for demonstration projects designed to test the ability of new technologies to improve traffic conditions.
The DOT tapped Transcom to implement Trips 123 because of the long-time role it has played in traffic management in the metropolitan region. Sixteen public agencies in three states – the DOTs, state police and transportation authorities – created Transcom as an inter-agency communications network in 1986. They continue to share the cost of the operation and are expected to shoulder the expense of Trips 123 after the federal grant is spent.
"We're still making improvements to the system and assessing it, but everything is being done with long-term use in mind,'' Post said.
The next new thing at Trips 123, Bamford said, could be a personalized alert service that sends real-time information about delays along a traveler's entire route to a cell phone or e-mail address.
Traffic alert: Liberty
Expect lane closures and lane shifts on routes 52 and 55 in the Village and Town of Liberty. Construction begins just west of the Main Street/Darbee Lane intersection in the Village of Liberty and goes through the Town of Liberty. The construction ends at Route 17.
