I drive under this bridge every week or so. It is VERY well marked with numerous signs leading up to it, flashing lights and all. From the second you get off the ramp of I-81 you are warned of this bridge. It explicitly says the clearance, no tractor trailers, etc. I cannot believe this happened. It takes a very stupid or tired driver to not see the signs. Also, the face of the bridge is painted bright, reflective orange. The driver is an idiot. Enough said. This is not the fault of the highway dept. or anyone else.

I was upstate this weekend, staying about 3 miles from the accident. The local news reported that the driver took a wrong turn, missing the thruway, and ended up on the Onondaga Lake Parkway by accident. Late at night, unfamiliar road - I can see how easy it is to miss the signs. Tractor trailers hit that trestle all the time. Obviously signs are not enough to prevent future accidents.

Okay. So it looks like my comment has been lost to the spam filters, due to the many links I had to Google Maps. If you go to Street view, you will find that the bus driver missed a warning sign 1/4 mile away from the bridge. In addition, there is no indication that the road he was driving on was a parkway. Signs merely mention the Route number.

As a professional tour guide, I've seen bus drivers good, bad, and ugly. A professional driver should be alert to low clearances and other restrictions -- buses and trucks are, by law, banned from roads designated as "parkways" (with a few exceptions). For less experienced drivers, however, there are two wild cards.

First of all, the "low clearance" signs always understate the clearance. For instance, signs at the Holland Tunnel list the clearance as 12' 6", but the Port Authority web site concedes that the "working clearance" is 13 feet, and hundreds of 13-foot buses pass through it every day. Some drivers assume they are "close enough" and ignore the warnings.

Then there are GPS systems. Some can be set to "bus and truck" routes; others cannot. Drivers in unfamiliar surroundings often depend of "the computer" and ignore what they see in front of them.

The clearance is intentionally understated. We're in the snow belt. They add a little extra in case there are a few inches of unplowed snow on the roads. But this wasn't a few inches, it was a couple of feet of difference. Also, the clearance is often measured to the lanes on the edges. The center lanes may have a couple of inches more clearance because of the arch of the overpass, but DOT isn't about to make up a whole bunch of confusing signs to mark each lane separately, so they just use the lowest figure. Truckers know, when in doubt, they should take the center lanes to get those precious inches.

"Truckers know, when in doubt, they should take the center lanes to get those precious inches."

Ha...I'd like to think that if they were in doubt, they should stop somewhere (safely) and find out for sure whether they are able to navigate the tunnel/bridge, rather than just picking the middle lane and hoping for the best!

YOu must know the clearance of your vehicle!! If there is any doubt, you proceed VERY VERY slowly at a crawl. If possible get out and look when you get to the bridge. Scraping or hitting the bridge at 2 mph is not catastrophic. Unfortunately it seems this driver never even considered the clearance issue. The bottom of the bridge is even painted a bright orange.

No no - you misunderstood me. Look at the bridge in the photos. It's a train bridge, probably from the 1910s or 20s. Bridges weren't built high back then because there was no such thing as tall trucks.

I know what you are referring to are the bridges built during the early Moses era which were purposely designed to have low clearances. This doesn't appear to be one of those.

I stopped riding Megabus because their drivers scared me. On my last trip with them, I was coming back from Philadelphia. The driver pulled up, let off the arriving passengers, immediately loaded us up in the bus and started on the return trip. In other words he ended up doing four hours of driving without even a fifteen minute break between trips. That strikes me as being a really good way to end up with a driver who is dangerously tired.

i'd have had a field day,

i'd have gone all out,

pointing fingers at megabus

if no one had died.

shame on you (megabus).

last time i took the megabus, the driver was the most coked up sterotypical new yorker ever. i was scared for my life and moved to the back near a coupla fat ladies to cushion the shock or the crash if need be

yus, im positive, it was the megabus upstate right by msg. dude was on something for realses

Are you sure about that? Most of the Megabus drivers I've had on the NYC-Boston route were Canadians, not New Yorkers. And I've never had a problem with the way they drive. Now the Chinatown buses....

I've seen a lot of terrible driving by these buses.

Not a surprise.

In all seriousness, it was only a matter of time before one of these double decker buses crashed into a low overpass and killed or seriously injured a bunch of people. The roads and parkways (which they shouldn't be driving on) in the NY state area have a large quantity of low clearance bridges due to the age of our infrastructure.

This happens incredibly often with tractor trailers running into low overpasses. I highly doubt the drivers of the double decker buses go through any additional training or licensing requirements than drivers of single level buses.

actually age has little to do with it. these overpasses were designed to be low to keep plebian forms of transit like buses from the parkways. class warfare is part of the infrastructure.

Glad someone pointed out that Robert Moses is still screwing us.

 The only problem is NY 370 is not a Moses parkway.

What the hell is wrong with COACH, the owner of Megabus? Don't they train their drivers at all? First, trucks and buses aren't allowed on parkways and this jerk winds up on a parkway. Then you get to a sign saying 10'9" clearance and he doesn't know that 13 is greater than 10???? I hope this company goes out of business after the law suits come in. 4 completeley innocent people are now dead because they put their trust in this company and it's drivers. I took the bus one time and after that trip decided to never use them again. Even the home office doesn't know where their buses are. It was due in to Syracuse at 6PM and at 6:10 I was told it's probably just a few minutes late. Heck, it had just left Buffalo which was 2+ hours away!!! Megabus WAS a great idea but maybe you need to put customers, riders and training first before counting your profits!!!!

Ease up, guys. No need to go crazy. First of all, whom did you ask about the location of the bus? Since Megabus doesn't have counters inside bus terminals, I doubt it was anybody inside. And calling up their toll-free number would be useless because it's just a reservation call center, just like when you call Greyhound, Amtrak, etc. They wouldn't have information about where the buses are.

Secondly, this driver wasn't untrained. According to reports, he had already done the route at least nine times. He took a wrong turn or the wrong exit off the highway and tried to keep going, which I'm sure is against company procedure. Also, not all parkways are closed to commercial traffic. Most, but not all.

Bottom line, every company has accidents. Don't wish them out of business the first time somebody got killed just because you had a bad experience with a late bus.