The town of Newburgh is known as the "crossroads of the Northeast," a phrase coined in the 1980s by then-town supervisor Robert J. Kirkpatrick Jr., not only because of Stewart Airport and the Hudson River, but also because two major interstate highways cross the town: Interstate 84 (east and west) and Interstate 87, also known as the New York State Thruway (north and south). Previously, the highways were accessible to each other via a short stretch of New York State Route 300 (a major north-south thoroughfare and a main commercial corridor in the town) but a direct connection between I-84 and the Thruway was completed in December 2009, after being under construction for five years.