The NY State Thruway is the longest toll highway system in the United States. It runs as I-90 East/West bound from the western border of NY to Albany, then it changes to I-87 North/South bound from Albany to New York City. The NY State Thruway is divided into five zones; Buffalo Zone, Syracuse Zone, Albany Zone, Mid-Hudson Zone, and New York Zone. As mentioned, this is a toll road and the exits are few and far between. There are, however, travel plazas on the Thruway where you can stop without officially getting off the Thruway and get refreshments, hit the head, get gas, or just rest. The tolls are about 4.5 cents per mile.
For more information on the NY State Thruway, please navigate to www.thruway.state.ny.us/tincweb for oodles of interesting information out there.
EZ Pass is a NY State Thruway feature that allows you to pay tolls without carrying cash or change. You essentially get a 4 inch x 4 inch x 1 inch plastic box that you put in your car. When you go through a toll plaza, it automagically reads your ‘tag’ (yes, those plastic boxes are called tags, you may have heard of these magic boxes referred to in Law and Order episodes) and charges your toll to a prepaid account. There is no cost to having an EZ Pass tag, it just requires a $25.00 deposit which is a credit that is used to pay your tolls, once your balance reaches $10.00, your credit card is automatically charged to replenish your account and bring the available balance back up to $25.00.
There are quite a few special EZ Pass plans available that are very reasonable. If you plan to travel on the Thruway a lot, I would recommend looking into these plans at www.e-zpassny.com. Remember, you have to travel on the Thruway to get to Buffalo, Syracuse, the Finger Lakes area, Albany, Toronto, and many more destinations.
Testimonial by Ahsan Ahmed
I live in Henrietta and travel to Geneva everyday for work. This requires me to travel 35 miles each way on the thruway. Without the EZ Pass, the toll is $1.40 each way. With the EZ Pass, but no special plans, I get a 10% discount on all tolls, so my toll went down to $1.26 each way. Then I learned of the Annual Plan, this is where you pay $80.00 a year and when you get on the Thruway, your first 30 miles of travel are free. This is what my tolls break down to:
| Distance/Day | Initial Cost | Toll/Day | Tolls/Year | Total Cost/Year | |
| Cash | 70 miles | $ - | $ 2.80 | $ 616.00 | $ 616.00 |
| EZ Pass no Plan | 70 miles | $ - | $ 2.52 | $ 554.40 | $ 554.40 |
| EZ Pass Annual Plan | 70 miles | $ 80.00 | $ 0.40 | $ 88.00 | $ 168.00 |
As you can see, there are quite a few options with the EZ Pass, I would highly recommend looking it up for yourself if you plan to travel a lot.