• Plans to revamp Exit 4 of Northway.
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Plans to revamp Exit 4 of Northway.
Plans to revamp Exit 4 of Northway.
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A view looking south on Wolf Rd, just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for decades. Now, it looks like the plan is dead, leaving the airport as the only significant airport statewide without a direct link to an interstate highway. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) less
A view looking south on Wolf Rd, just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for ... more
Photo: Paul Buckowski
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A view looking south on Wolf Rd, just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for decades. Now, it looks like the plan is dead, leaving the airport as the only significant airport statewide without a direct link to an interstate highway. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) less
A view looking south on Wolf Rd, just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for ... more
Photo: Paul Buckowski
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Traffic moves along Albany Shaker Rd. and through the intersection with Wolf Rd., just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for decades. Now, it looks like the plan is dead, leaving the airport as the only significant airport statewide without a direct link to an interstate highway. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) less
Traffic moves along Albany Shaker Rd. and through the intersection with Wolf Rd., just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport ... more
Photo: Paul Buckowski
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Traffic moves along Wolf Rd., on the left in photo, and Albany Shaker Rd. just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for decades. Now, it looks like the plan is dead, leaving the airport as the only significant airport statewide without a direct link to an interstate highway. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) less
Traffic moves along Wolf Rd., on the left in photo, and Albany Shaker Rd. just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the ... more
Photo: Paul Buckowski
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In this view lookin south east, traffic moves along Albany Shaker Rd. and through the intersection with Wolf Rd., just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between Albany International Airport and the Northway has been on the drawing board for decades. Now, it looks like the plan is dead, leaving the airport as the only significant airport statewide without a direct link to an interstate highway. (Paul Buckowski / Times Union) less
In this view lookin south east, traffic moves along Albany Shaker Rd. and through the intersection with Wolf Rd., just down from exit 4 on I-87, on Monday, Oct. 15, 2012 in Colonie, NY. The direct link between ... more
Photo: Paul Buckowski
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Colonie

Construction on a new Exit 4 connecting the Adirondack Northway to the Albany International Airport moved a step closer Monday night when the Albany County Legislature's mass transit committee gave its approval to an offer by the state Department of Transportation to pay the Albany County Airport Authority $855,000 for 12 acres of land to accommodate an exit ramp.

Construction is expected to get under way in 2019, DOT spokesman Bryan Viggiani said Tuesday.

Efforts to better connect the Northway to the airport have been underway for half a century. Originally, a new exit, Exit 3, was to have been built as part of an interchange with Interstate 687, which would have run from Exit 5A, the Corporate Woods exit, of Interstate 90 west to the Northway and the airport.

The I-687 expressway, which faced opposition, was scrapped in 1973 and withdrawn from the national interstate highway plan in 1977.

Exit 3 was never built. The project instead will reconfigure the existing Exit 4.

The airport authority had purchased the land using a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to improve its runway protection zone and safety zones, said airport spokesman Doug Myers on Tuesday. The FAA will require that the $855,000 from the county be used for other airport improvement projects.

The full county legislature still needs to approve the deal.

With the Exit 4 redesign, northbound Northway traffic will exit on a flyover, over the southbound lanes and behind The Desmond Hotel to a T-intersection with Albany Shaker Road to the airport, avoiding two traffic lights. Southbound travelers will have one fewer traffic light, also exiting onto a ramp looping behind the Desmond and directly onto Albany Shaker, tying into the same new T-intersection as the northbound flyover ramp.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo, whose late father Gov. Mario Cuomo promoted the exit project back in 1994, in 2016 included $50 million in the budget for the improvements.

"We are in the final stages of the design and engineering process and expect construction to begin in 2019," the DOT's Viggiani said Tuesday. "Final cost of the project is contingent upon the outcome of that process."