Interchange of the Week
Monday, 26 January 2004

NY 27 & NY 27A, Oakdale

CR 85

A full-size image (260 KB) is also available.

Orientation: NY 27 (Sunrise Highway) runs left to right along the southern edge of Connetquot River State Park. NY 27A enters on Montauk Highway at bottom left and ends near the right edge of the photo. Montauk Highway continues toward bottom right as Suffolk CR 85. Pond Road is off the right edge of the photo.

Exit numbers: From NY 27 eastbound, Exit 46A is for Montauk Highway (NY 27A and CR 85); there is no Exit 46A westbound. Westbound, Exit 47 is for Connetquot River State Park. The eastbound Exit 47, at right, is for Pond Road south.

The interchange: Known as the Oakdale Merge, this interchange draws considerable criticism from motorists who frequent it, largely because of its lack of service roads and full connections. When Sunrise Highway was first constructed to Oakdale (right), it had a short section overlapped by Montauk Highway, with two through lanes in each direction and full-access junctions at both ends of the overlap. (An old piece of the western junction is visible in the photos.) Later, as shown below, a separate two-lane roadway was built to carry Montauk Highway traffic, while Sunrise Highway was expanded to three lanes in each direction. With this new configuration, all connections to and from NY 27 westbound were cut off, except for the roadway serving Connetquot River State Park. Eastbound-to-eastbound movements were retained, along with U-turns to and from Montauk Highway along NY 27 eastbound.

Most recently, in 1999, a new eastbound Exit 47 was opened, feeding an eastbound service road and serving Pond Road just to the east. This ramp crossed the path of the ramp from NY 27A to NY 27 eastbound, which as a result was removed. This left in place only three out of eight possible movements between NY 27 and NY 27A.

Congestion is also a problem here due to the lack of service roads through the Oakdale Merge. Throughout most of its length in Suffolk County, Sunrise Highway carries two-lane service roads in each direction, and six lanes of through traffic. Through the Oakdale Merge, the usual five lanes in each direction are reduced to three. However, a more complete junction was planned for Oakdale in 1981, involving continuous service roads and crossovers for access to and from NY 27 westbound. Due to the sensitivity of surrounding parklands, the complete interchange proposal was not approved.