earlysunrise

Hi everyone,

I'm gonna be flying out of JFK in October, at 10.50 a.m., a national flight.

How early should I drive away from New London, CT, to be at the airport in time?
I just need to return the car at the rental center, no searching for parking necessary.

According to Google Maps, when I drive away 5.45 from New London, I should be at JFK in 2h 30min. So according to that, I should be at JFK 8.15. But then, it says it's 3h 10mins in rush hour. And so it would be 8.55 at JFK.

Should be in time enough for the check-in cutoff time at 10.20, or the 10.35 boarding cut-off time. And of course for the 10.50 departure of the plane.

I searched the internet as much as I could, but I could not find any info on how much the normal travel time of 2h 30mins would be delayed in rush hour traffic, in real life in the morning rush hour.

I know that VanWyck can be congested, but there's alternate roads for every road on the way. There's the Merritt Expy as replacement for I-95, and there's Throg Neck's Bridge as a replacement for Whitestone Bridge, and Cross Island Expy as a replacement for Van Wyck. So one could check the traffic reports when on the go, and use alternative roads if on the original ones there's too much of a traffic jam.

I've looked into trains, of course, but it's too complicated with going MetroNorth first, and then subway, and then AirTrain.

Also my flight is only going out of JFK, I can't fly out of PVD or BDL or even BOS instead. I also can't drive to the airport the evening before, and stay there overnight in a hotel, because of a family gettogether on the late afternoon before. I can leave early in the morning though.

What's your suggestion? When should I leave in the morning, on a Thursday, in New London, in order to be safe for the 10.50 flight departure at JFK?

Thank you in advance for any response.

cordelli

Welcome to Flyertalk.

If it's just you consider taking the 6:30 Amtrak out of New London, which gets into Penn Station at 8:45. That gives you plenty of time to get to the airport in time though the usual LIRR / Airtrain combination.

If you want to drive, I would say that three hours is not enough time if traffic is bad. That's averaging 40 mph all the way, and on a normal day that's hard to do.

I would leave about 5, which is way too early, but will get you ahead of most of the rush hours. You would probably be fine from New London to New Haven, have a bit on the bridge in New Haven, be good till Bridgeport, and at about 6:30 to 6:45 traffic starts building in Fairfield, and on a bad day you can have it pretty much all the way to the airport.

If you can stay ahead of the traffic you will have a much less stressful ride.

As to alternatives, there really aren't any. If 95 is bad people will move over to the Merritt making that bad. Same things with the bridges, etc.

Couple of things that may help.

In Fairfield County (really from New Haven to the state line) after 6 am you can get good traffic reports on the 6's on WICC AM 600 in Bridgeport. New York traffic reports are on the 1's on 1010 am, and the 8's on WCBS 880. The New York stations don't usually report on the usual day to day issues, so not saying something about a road doesn't mean it's a piece of cake.

If you have a choice when renting, get an EZ pass. The cash lines at the bridge can be very long.

As time gets closer you will want to check which construction will be going on, overnight construction is not at all uncommon ending usually at 6 am.

It's totally possible you will have a great ride without any real hassles, but that's not the usual day to day ride on that part of the road.

hedo_traveler

If this flight is during the week, I wouldn't risk leaving that morning unless you leave very early to miss the traffic. There are times when a relative of mine spends over an hour on 95 between Bridgeport and Stamford alone. Consider going the night before and getting a hotel.

Analise

That's great to know. Are the traffic reports limited to Fairfield County or will they include Hartford area traffic information?

hedo_traveler

If you want Hartford area traffic, tune to WTIC-AM 1080. I believe their traffic in the morning is on the 6's.

cordelli

It's just 95 and the Merritt and occasionally Rt 8. Milford to Stamford, only if something is really bad will they go to New Haven or Greenwich.

It's one of those local AM talk radio news stations, I'm sure a good portion of their listeners do so because of the traffic and weather reports, so they pretty much only cover their signal area.

They are only good about the times in the morning rush, in the afternoon rush they have stuff like the Clark Howard show on and aren't as good about the timing, but in the morning you can pop over on the 6's and they will be there.

Analise

Thanks. Does this Hartford station provide traffic 24/7 every 10 minutes?

Thanks.

hedo_traveler

Unfortunately, they don't. They don't do traffic between Noon and 3:00 when Rush is on and they don't do traffic after 6:30 PM I believe. It usually strts in the AM at around 6:30.

baglab

FYI ... the CT DOT website posts pretty accurate traffic info ... and WTNH also has excellent maps for traffic conditions state-wide. They even post backwoods incidents.

earlysunrise

Thank you cordelli, and thank you hedo_traveler, for your responses!

Thanks also for the warm welcome to the Flyertalk forum. That is very nice. :-)

Thank you for that info.

Now it's been a few days since I asked the question, and so I followed the morning traffic between New London and JFK on two websites: http://www.traffic.com and on http://newyork.cbslocal.com/traffic.

I don't have any personal experience to what extend those websites are accurate when it comes to the real traffic conditions on the road.

But the second one even provides speeds for every exit on the highway.

So, talking about the average speed, you said, 40 mph all the way would be hard to do. Maybe these last days Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday (I'll be flying out on a Thursday) are not normal days, but the traffic doesn't seem to be as bad as I expected.

I calculated the average speed based on the data from http://newyork.cbslocal.com/traffic/

It was 51mph on the I-95 from New London to NYC, and 34mph average on the 678.

Given the I-95 portion of the trip is 110miles, with 51mph average it would result in 2h travel time.
And the 34mph on the 13miles on 678 result in 22min travel time.

So that's way shorter than I would have thought it would be. I'm gonna leave much more time than that of course. But there seem to be days where it's seeming like an okay drive. Only exit 27 to 21, and then exit 16 to 14 on I-95 there were lower speeds under 20mph shown, and then a little slower traffic before the Whitestone bridge.
It's funny, because there was other roads that I saw heavier traffic jams on from 7-9 a.m., like on Bruckner Expy, LIE inside of Brooklyn and CrossBronx Expy. But on I-95 up to the Whitestone intersection, everything seems not flowing 60mph, but flowing 45mph or something, so kinda okay.

So, plane leaving 10.50 at JFK (domestic). So I'm gonna try to return the car at Federal Circle at 9.00 a.m., and I'm gonna leave New London 5.15 a.m. Seems like one should be able to get from New London to Federal Circle in 3h 45mins, even if there's more traffic like the one I saw on the traffic websites.

Of course if there's gonna be snow, or tropical rain, or something that makes traffic looks like it's going to be way worse than typical, I'm gonna leave earlier. :-) But from what I observed the last days on traffic maps online, getting to JFK in the morning by car isn't an impossible task. :-)



That's something the traffic websites seem to confirm. When I checked it, Merritt Pkwy in the morning had some slower traffic, just as I-95 had some. Plus, the speed limit on of 45-55 mph while it's 60-65 on I-95. So I think unless there's an accident that's closing I-95 down completely or something, one is probably not going to win so much time using Merritt instead. :-)


So in order for people who're going to travel a same route to JFK in the future to have info, I'm gonna try to post how the actual ride went, once we did it... :-)

Thanks again everyone! :-)

tfred

very scientific...........

however, one accident and you are dead. aint gonna make it

hope there is a very good reason why you are staying overnight in CT

i drive from Newport RI to North Jersey every once in a while in the morning and the Fairfield county traffic can be stopped dead on 95 and it isnt moving at 20 mph on average for no apparent reason