I just talked to a friend who says he ALWAYS goes over the GW to the Throgs Neck to Long Island- even when he's coming up from southern New Jersey.

If we come up from southern NJ to go out onto Long Island, we ALWAYS take the Outer Crossing bridge/route 440 and go up to I 278 east across the BQE to I495/LIE east to get to where we're going.

We figure the bridge toll across the GW and the Outer Crossing bridge are the same (or the Goethals), we miss the tolls from route 440 up to I 80 on the Jersey Pike and we miss the toll on the Throgs Neck. With a 6-axle combination, we're saving about $40 PLUS long hours of traffic. Let's face it- the BQE and the cross Bronx cancel eachother out.

Now- the toll LEAVING Long Island across the Verazzano (or however you spell it) is CRAZY. Last time I paid it it was nearly $60. We don't generally leave out that way unless we're already over near the bridge.

Any other handy tricks?

You could try building a ramp and jumping the river. Or you could get one of those floating semi's like in CW McCall's "Convoy 'Round The World" song. Just need a lotta faith though.

When I lose my mind and take a load to L.I. , I do the GW to the Throgs Neck to get on the L.I.E..

i usually take exit 10---440-278-and then 495 unless there is traffic. In which case i'll do the G.W.

Taking the g.w. is not that much longer than outerbridge all factors (traffic) remaining equal.

Usually when you take 278 the area near Todt hill exit usually gets crowed, but lately it's been good. (knock on wood)

the only other "trick" i would know of would be to be under 13'6" so you could take lincoln then 495 all the way through. That would be great.

Uh Chad/TROLL... what if someone is hauling HAZMAT ?????

i thought the east coast started in pittsburg

Isn't that more like 13'0"? We got lost down on the Jersey side of the Lincoln Tunnel once... I just remember seeing the signs- there was a shipper down that way we used to go to back in the days of drybox freight...

When we go to Manhattan (yes, tft, we, too, sometimes loose our minds) and have to go onto Long Island from there, we save the toll money by going down to the Manhattan Bridge and across. It really, really sucks, but if we're down at Jacob Javitz or lower Manhattan, it's not much worse than driving up out of Manhattan and over one of the bridges...

I've only been there a couple of times and always took the Throgs Neck Bridge