The Adirondack Northway provides fast access from Albany to Plattsburgh. You can drive this massive 4-lane and south of Lake George 6-lane highway all this distance in about 2 hours and 15 minutes at 70 miles per hour.

It brings great convenience and freedom to the automobile driver, but it's also noisy. You can hear it nearly two miles away and 1000 feet on up at the top of Pok-o-Moonshine. Most of us don't climb mountains to hear traffic, and it's annoying, but it sure is convenience.

We all know it's necessary for modern commerce. It's safer then Route 9 and it avoids all this traffic going through smaller communities. It makes it quieter for them, but they also lose business. People forget about the Adirondacks when they are passing through it—it's just an hour drive through a bunch of scenery.

It's a very beautiful highway, but also a very deep scar in the Adirondacks. It divides mountains into two, and it makes it easy for man to get to every place up here. Small towns are within an easy drive for motorists, and Plattsburgh isn't really that far from Albany and other major cities in New York.

The Northway has been controversial since the 1960s, and it's not clear if the bigger highway is better. It certainly is the reason why we now have the Adirondack Park Agency to protect our forest and keep people away. It would be the death of the Park should people be allowed to use this highway to build and access all that so wish to do so.