Eastbound, New York State touring route 17M joins NY 17 in Goshen and was routed to exit 125, where it would parallel NY 17 westbound for a distance on the south side of US 6/NY 17, cross an overpass, and then resume eastbound on the north side of 17. At some point, exit 125 was moved further east to a new overpass-- which does not connect to 17M in either direction, even though it runs right alongside it. Instead of doing the sensible thing and routing 17M onto Matthews Street, the county-maintained road north of 17 between exit 123 and 125-- which is how it should have been done in the first place-- state engineers came up with an even more convoluted solution. They created a new reference route 984O for the gap between the new exit and the previously existing section of 17M, and now "eastbound" 17M traffic needs to go even further in the westbound direction to get back to the overpass that connects to the section of 17M north of 17.
It's really time to fix this. First, state touring routes are routinely posted over county-maintained roads, so that is not an obstacle. Put 17M where it belongs-- over the 17A/207 overpass, onto Matthews Street, and then past the QuickChek and into the rest of 17M so that people don't have to drive west to go east. Sign the state-maintained section of 17M that is south of 17 with 984O reference markers, or better still, swap the maintenance of that with the maintenance of what ought to be 17M-- Matthews Street-- with the county. Since ultimately the State Legislature determines what sections of road are state highways and what are not, it should really be done as an act of the Legslature if necessary. Then the state reference markers on 984O and what would be old 17M can be removed altogether, since the state DOT seems to dislike changing reference marker routes, which results in a nonsensical jumble of current routes, former routes, and reference routes. (Try explaining why a stretch of I-86 has NY 14 reference markers to someone!)
An even better idea would be to convert the one-way underpass from Matthews Street in Goshen into a two-way underpass and connect 17M in both directions to Matthews Street. 17M should be the local route anyway, not the freeway. This would probably require the westbound exit ramp to 6/17M from 17 to be eliminated or somehow rebuilt so that 17M could pass underneath it-- but traffic for westbound 6/17M could exit just before that at the 17A/207 overpass and go a few blocks through Goshen. Eastbound US 6 could go directly to the 17 freeway as it does now. An even easier alternative is simply to put a traffic signal at the foot of the current westbound 6/17M ramp so that eastbound 17M could pass safely. The current underpass may well be wide enough to accomodate two lanes of 17M traffic.
Oh yes, one more thing-- if I-86 ever makes it this far east, the Route 17 designation should move back to 17M, at least to Middletown and preferably along all the other bypassed sections of 17 that still exist. NY 32 can be extended south to where NY 17 and NY 17M currently split.