The highway is one of the worst around, with deep divots, cracked pavement and potholes the size of manhole covers. The speed limit plummets to 45 mph, and the blood pressures of most drivers soar.
But starting as early as Thursday, passengers on this road will see something they have rarely seen before: work crews, as New York and the Senecas, the state’s largest tribal nation, announced a truce Wednesday.
The deal ends five years of bickering over the deteriorated interstate, which brought criticism for Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo.
The agreement will allow state road crews to completely overhaul the 3-mile stretch over the next three months. But it may also help repair the rotten relationship between the Senecas and the state, which have fought for decades over issues like cigarette taxes and highway tolls.
The latest dispute centers on the tribe’s casino revenues, including more than $250 million that arbitrators this year ruled the tribe owed. That decision has been contested by the Senecas, who own and operate three gleaming gambling halls on tribal lands in Western New York.
Through all of these issues runs a common thread: the Senecas’ claim of sovereignty. The stretch of Interstate 90 that crosses their land resulted in several confrontations with the state police during the 1990s. At one point, tribal protesters dropped burning tires off an overpass along the same stretch of road to show their displeasure at a planned state tax on cigarettes, long a lucrative business for the state’s tribes.
The deteriorating section of highway, part of the New York State Thruway system, has been blamed for blown tires and broken tie rods and all other manner of swerves and close calls. It prompted state Rep. Tom Reed, a Republican from Western New York, to call for an investigation by the Justice Department in August, saying that Cuomo was endangering public safety.
Cuomo, a third-term Democrat, has said that Reed was simply playing politics, and that he had feared sending state road crews onto the reservation and giving the Senecas an excuse not to pay the casino revenue.
On Wednesday, Cuomo said that getting the agreement with the Senecas had been challenging. “It was hard to get there,” he said in a radio interview on WAMC.
For his part, Reed said on Facebook that he was pleased with the agreement and had been “happy to lead the public outcry over the road conditions.”
As news reports about the road continued to percolate, the tribe and the state came back to the table this month, culminating with “several days of direct communication,” according to the tribe’s president, Rickey Armstrong Sr.
Armstrong had insisted last week that Thruway Authority officials needed to “address the many transportation-related issues that exist on Seneca territory in a comprehensive way,” and in a statement Wednesday he said he was still holding out hope for a broader deal.
Matthew J. Driscoll, the executive director of the Thruway Authority, said he hoped the repairs would be done before the winter, when Lake Erie winds and lake-effect snow can make life miserable on even the best of byways.
The deal was hailed by local leaders who have fielded complaints from residents.
George M. Borrello, the Chautauqua County executive who lives near the no-good, terrible, very bad highway, said he was thrilled that he — and his car — would soon be safer on the roads.
“I’m happy I will no longer be playing Russian roulette every time I get on that horrific stretch,” he said.
This article originally appeared in
.