The plan to introduce highway speed E-ZPass to the New York State Thruway at the Woodbury toll plaza appears to have generated significant community support because of its potential to improve air quality. The area is the nexus of Routes 17, 6, 32 and the Thruway, and air quality and traffic are big concerns.

“The overall issue for us is moving traffic, reducing congestion and improving air quality, so I think this is going to be a plus,” said Woodbury Supervisor John Burke this week, adding he’s received no public feedback about the proposal.

Harriman Mayor Stephen Welle hasn’t heard anything from anybody either: “We’re already on record with them (the Thruway Authority) about their salt usage � we’ve got an aquifer around the Harriman Business Park � but I think the general feeling about the project is positive because that north-south traffic is going to flow right through and not stop and start.”

The Orange County Department of Planning agrees. The department, which voiced early support for the project as a way to mitigate traffic congestion and air pollution, reiterated its endorsement this week in formal comments to the authority.

The authority, which presented the $64 million proposal in May, filed the 117-page draft design and environmental assessment last month at libraries and town halls and at www.nysthruway.gov. The deadline for comments, originally Monday, has been pushed back to Sept. 8 because of the Labor Day holiday.

The Woodbury toll plaza will be the first of many along the 541-mile toll road to be revamped over the next five years to offer highway speed E-ZPass.

About 60 percent of the 45,000 vehicles that pass through the 14-lane toll plaza every day are equipped with E-ZPass. When the project is completed in 2009, the signals from their tags will be captured by overhead sensors at highway speed, 65 mph, versus toll booth speed, 5 mph.

The project will be done in two phases and completed in 2009. The first contract, scheduled to be awarded in November, will modify the exit and entrance ramps at both the Woodbury and the Harriman toll plazas as well as the merging lanes north and south of Woodbury. The changes will result in widening the highway for almost two miles on either side of Woodbury to eliminate potential conflict among entering, exiting and through traffic.

The second phase will bring construction of the new 14-lane toll plaza � it’s 15 now � and installation of the new E-ZPass equipment. It will have two highway-speed E-ZPass lanes in each direction, three cash lanes northbound and six southbound and one lane for traffic entering from Route 17 through the Harriman toll plaza. A pedestrian bridge will also be built over the toll plaza for employees.

ROL