Need route advice -- Connecticut to Pittsburgh, PA

[licamell]

So I'm up in Maine at a conference right now and am going to Pittsburgh on the way home. I have to go through Connecticut, but after that I was curious if anyone had any input on the route (in terms of enforcement, etc) that I take. My two options would be #1 -- similar to my normal route from DC/Philly or #2 -- I was messing around with Google Maps and figured this is only 5 min longer but have no idea if these are smaller/bigger and/or faster/slower roads. Also the turnpike is nice for their use of K-band (even though they're damn good at IO), but not sure who works on 84 and how enforcement is there).

#1 (this is similar to the route I would normally take from DC or Philly)

84 West
91 South
95 South (Pass through GW bridge, NY, some of NJ)
78 West to Harrisburg
76 West (the PA turnpike)
376 West into the city

#2

84 West
80 West (on here for like 180 miles)
PA 28 South (for around 50 miles) basically to the city


So is it worth avoiding NY/NJ? Or are 84 west and PA-28 too small of roads that I can't just go faster with the traffic like on 78.

I appreciate it guys!

[jwardell]

I would certainly stay above the NYC area for traffic reasons, stay on 84.

CT is almost all laser.
NY is a mix.
PA is mostly K-band mixed among a ton of K-band drones, so be careful. They also like to do a lot of aerial vascar.

[licamell]

Yeah, I realize PA is IO K from the troopers but have never been on 80 or 28. I assume 28 is definitely going to be a tiny road with potential vascar/enradd, so that would be the plus for going south to the turnpike. How is enforcement and speed/traffic on 80?

Also, what I really am most unsure of is the PA-28 from 80 to pittsburgh. I can't tell from the map, but it looks like the first half of it is a tiny road going through towns... which might be good enough reason to avoid the whole thing. I will be traveling through this area probably around 2 am, so going through little towns which use enradd would be no fun.

[Nighthawk243]

For PA, stay on the Interstate as much as possible. I-80 and I-79 are your best bets for Pittsburgh. You can make the jump to I-79 south not long after the Grove City exit for SR-173... its about 4 miles west of it. So basically, you'll be running I-80 west, and hit up the Pittsburgh south exit a few miles past the Grove City/Sandy Lake exit. Head through that cloverleaf and you'll be on I-79 south. I-79 south goes right into Pittsburgh, no reason to sit 50 miles on PA-28.

The interstate system in Pennsylvania is mainly dominated by PSP, who use K/Ka (Its one of those two bands, my detector braps and shows the same signal for both, so I'm not exactly sure on the specific frequency.) There are also, as mentioned, the drones. Usually either the road construction signs that are used by PennDOT (The lightup ones that actually display messages), or the speed radar that tells you your speed. Those do fire as the PSP style radar.

For the interstate, you can easily find most of the PSP with a good detector. Also, when on the interstate, look to the left side of the road, the PSP love to sit at the emergency vehicle turnaround between the northbound and southbound routes (I-79) or the eastbound and westbound ones (I-80). (At least when I see them). They DO however love to sit behind bridges along State routes.

The local police in PA are much more difficult. By state law, the local departments are banned from using any radar device. Alot of departments use a variety of non-radar detection methods... most commonly VASCAR and the old "Stopwatch" method. But since you're going to be in Allegheny County, you have a new pain in the backside to deal with. Recently, a number of departments in Southwest PA have been getting the new ENRADD system, which is basically IR. Pittsburgh and its surrounding suburbs are basically the State's testbed for it. Its hard to detect, and there's two cops involved in this one. Theres one that operates the detector, and one that sits down the road to intercept you. So you can get hit, and not know you've been nabbed until 2000 feet (Transmitter range to intercept vehicle) down the road. (You seem familiar with it anyways). Some departments also use the road cords.

Basically staying on I-80 West and I-79 South are your best bets.

[lukenosewalker]

This is the route I used to take from Boston, MA to DE:
84 W to Brewster
684 for about 10 miles to Saw Mill River Pkwy (fun road - it's narrow and it winds and turns, psl 55 I believe)
Get off Saw Mill River Pkwy at Exit 22 for I87/287 North (I made that bold because it would seem against logic to go North if you want to go south, but trust me, there's a point - it's only a few exits and it's to get to the GSP instead of going south past nyc.
I87/I287 North for a few exits past the Tappen Zee to Exit 14 - Garden State Pkwy exit
Then once you're on the Garden State Pkwy, you have a few options, you can get to route 80 W really quick, or you can continue on to I78 to get to PA. Unfortunately, I'm not too familiar with PA roads, so I'm not much help there.

While that route might be one of the more heavily patrolled routes (stretch of 87/287 just after the Tappen Zee, on the GSP near the NY/NJ border and a little ways south, and I 84 are some of the most patrolled I've seen), I think it might be one of the more quicker routes. Mapquest says Boston to DE should be about 6 hours, taking that route, I made 4:40. I will say that your best bet, IMHO, is to avoid nyc area as much as possible, that is, try to avoid 95S and the GW bridge (I shudder as think about the traffic I've ran into on the GW). Although, again, this might be a heavily patrolled route, so definitely use caution.

[licamell]

Update on the route I took...

I didn't have any real input before I headed out so I compared paths... as well as a third way which my Nuvi wanted to take me. I went with the GPS recommended one, and it worked out pretty well. Here is how it took me:

basically 84 west to 80 west ( though i got on 91 and some other road for a little since it was more direct)
I then took 22S which was around where penn state is which led me to 91 S
Then I was on 220 for a little while until it brought me to 376 which bring you right into pittsburgh

Total driving time was 7.5 hours, not too bad at all. Would have been better if I didn't run into construction on 220, but since it was 2 AM it wasn't too bad.