The Interstate 86 designation has been applied to two different freeways in two totally different regions of the United States; the eastern Interstate 86 is a freeway extending along the southern border of New York State. For the western Interstate 86 in eastern Idaho, click here. The eastern Interstate 86 is a newer designation overlaying the New York Route 17 designation to an increasing extent, as more of Route 17 becomes converted into an Interstate-standard freeway. As of writing this (in March 2022), the eastern Interstate 86 designation has been applied to two separate segments of Route 17, which have been deemed worthy of Interstate status. The first segment runs from Elmira, New York, west to poke into the northernmost corner of Pennsylvania, where it ends at Interstate 90. This will be the easternmost sixty miles of Interstate 86, once it's fully completed. The other segment currently signed as Interstate 86 extends slightly east and slightly west of Binghamton, and it includes a short concurrency with Interstate 81. The Interstate 86 designation will eventually encompass all of New York Route 17 situated west of Interstate 87, once Route 17 is fully upgraded to Interstate standards. That will put the eastern end of Interstate 86 at Interstate 87 in Harriman, New York.
My photo of an Interstate 86 marker, marking the eastern segment of Interstate 86, comes from a point on the border between Sayre, Pennsylvania, and Waverly, New York. This point on the state border is where Pennsylvania Route 199 becomes New York Route 34. Interstate 86 comes so close to the southern border of New York here, that the southern ramps of the interchange with New York Route 34 enter Pennsylvania, where they reach what is technically Pennsylvania Route 199. The signage here faces south, so traffic on Route 199 and Route 34 can find the ramps to Interstate 86 and New York Route 17. The eastbound onramp to the freeway, part of the fountain interchange occupying the two western quadrants of the junction, sits immediately to the left, as indicated by this south-facing signage. I walked to this sign assembly from a gas station a couple hundred feet to the south, where I made a pit stop on the way home from the Northeast trip of October 2015. Back to the nationwide main page. Back to the home page.