Parkways in New York - State Parkways

State Parkways

The state's parkway system originally began as a series of then-high speed (25 miles per hour or 40 kilometres per hour) four-lane roads that were created to provide a scenic way into, out of, and around New York City. The first section of this system opened in 1908. Most of the early roads have been replaced and redesigned to address higher speed requirements and to increase capacity. In later sections north of New York City, the roadways were typically divided by a wide landscaped median and provided service areas along the way that offered fuel and restrooms. Many of these parkways were built by regional agencies such as the Long Island State Park Commission (LISPC), New York City Parks Department, Taconic State Park Commission (TSPC), Westchester County Parks Commission (WCPC), and Palisades Interstate Park Commission (PIPC). Most are now maintained, if not owned, by NYSDOT outside New York City and the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) within New York City.

Today, the state parkways are for the most part equivalent to expressways and freeways built in other parts of the country, except for a few oddities. First, because many of these roads were either designed before civil engineers had experience building roads for automobile use or widened in response to increasing traffic, many New York parkways lack shoulders. Second, because designers focused more on making routes scenic rather than efficient, the parkways are meandering, often built to follow a river, and so contain many turns. Finally, because most use low, decorative stone-arch overpasses that would trap trucks, commercial vehicles, trucks and tractor trailers are banned from parkways. In Manhattan, this has led to the oddity of forcing all trucking onto local streets as the island has only one short interstate passing through the far Upper West Side.

List of parkways