page_title: Interstate 787
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 787 / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Very north end of Interstate 787 (on the Collar City Bridge) in Troy, New York, United States
context_page_description: Interstate 787 is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of New York. I-787 is the main highway for those traveling into and out of downtown Albany. The southern terminus is, per New York traffic data, at the toll plaza for New York State Thruway exit 23 southwest of downtown Albany. However, current signage indicates the terminus as along I-787's ramp to US 9W. The northern terminus of the route is unclear, with some sources placing the terminus at 8th Street in Troy, creating an overlap with New York State Route 7 between Green Island and Troy. Other documents show I-787 as terminating at its interchange with NY 7 and NY 787 in the town of Colonie. Regardless, the route is 10.16 miles long if extended to Troy, or 9.55 miles excluding the NY 7 overlap.
  North of NY 7, I-787 continues north as NY 787 to the city of Cohoes.
context_section_description: Construction began in the early 1960s on the first segment of I-787 from I-87 to Bassett Street. It was completed and opened to traffic in the mid-1960s. By 1968, construction had begun on the remainder of I-787 south of Watervliet. The portion of the highway between I-90 and NY 378 was completed by 1971; the rest of I-787 south of 23rd Street in Watervliet was built and open to traffic by 1973. The ramps from the South Mall Arterial were opened in 1974. An extension of the freeway north to Arch Street near Green Island was completed by 1977. By 1980, the majority of modern exit 9 was completed even though the Collar City Bridge and the "Alternate Route 7" freeway had yet to be constructed. The Collar City Bridge over the Hudson River was built in 1981, connecting the pre-existing ramps at exit 9 to downtown Troy.
  When I-787 was first planned, its northern terminus was at US 4 in Troy. On January 1, 1970, the I-787 designation was truncated westward to what is now exit 9 near Green Island while the then-proposed Collar City Bridge became (albeit on paper) part of I-88, a new highway extending from Binghamton to Troy by way of the Susquehanna Expressway and Alternate Route 7. The extension of I-88 never materialized as Alternate Route 7 ended up becoming a realignment of NY 7 when it was completed in the 1980s.
  In 2005, an elevated section of the northbound exit 3 off ramp slipped off its supports, causing temporary closure of the ramp and causing disruption of the flow of traffic into the Empire State Plaza. The ramp connects I-787 with the South Mall Arterial. Initially, most roads and ramps near or under the elevated highway were closed, but once temporary piers were in place, most roads reopened. A detour was set up to allow northbound traffic to enter the Plaza, but it required crossing the Hudson River over the Dunn Memorial Bridge and traveling through the city of Rensselaer to get back on the bridge, allowing access into the Plaza. The slip caused the south end of a simple span of the overpass to drop about 2 feet (0.6 m). The pier stands 80 feet (24.4 m) tall at the slippage point.  Nobody was seriously injured by the slipped ramp.
caption: Collar City Bridge traveling west (south on I-787)
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