Earlier this year, John Jordan got me into using FourSquare on my smartphone. FourSquare isn’t anything I take seriously, but it’s a fun game to play to unlock badges and specials and stuff.

John created a FourSquare location for the ongoing construction at Exit 6 on the Northway, and he named it “Exit 6 Clusterf*ck.” Sadly, it became one of the most checked into venues in the region, as of today, 227 different people have checked in for almost 2000 checkins.

Because my commute involves this stop every day, I have been able to hold down the mayorship (most days with checkins in a 2 month period) of this location for a good portion of the year. In the past two weeks, I’ve been ousted twice; competition has been getting stiff.

In speaking with John, as the construction pattern was becoming obvious, I told him it reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer adopts a mile of highway in NYC and paints over the dashed divider lines. Kramer’s reasoning is to turn the four lane highway into a “two lane comfort cruise.” It obviously doesn’t end well…

Now, the exchange at exit 6 is known as a “Single Point Urban Interchange” or SPUI. To get on or off interstate 87 or to pass through the intersections, there are four nice, wide lanes for you to gracefully move through, as opposed to the rigid 3-4 lanes that were present in the past.

You can read about it here: https://www.nysdot.gov/regional-offices/region1/projects/i87-exit6/photos

So in my first activity as mayor, I hereby rename the “Exit 6 Clusterf*ck” to “Exit 6 – Cosmo Kramer’s Four Lane Comfort Cruise.“