|
The Grand Central Parkway is another highway that has been altered radically over the years. These changes have brought an added measure of safety (along with new traffic lanes), but have thinned out some of the wooded buffer bordering the parkway. Unlike many other parkways in New York City, the Grand Central Parkway has had numerous improvements with entrance and exit ramps.
One major exception to the improvements of the 1960's and early 1970's is the "Kew Gardens interchange," where the Jackie Robinson Parkway, Van Wyck Expressway (I-678), Queens Boulevard (NY 25) and Union Turnpike also meet. Not much has changed with the interchange since the Van Wyck Expressway was first built in the early 1950's, and even when the Van Wyck was extended north a decade later, there were no new connections built between the Grand Central Parkway and the Van Wyck Expressway (other than the original early 1950's connections). The parapets of the stone-arch bridges also precluded construction of proper acceleration-deceleration lanes.
The parkway has several notable congestion points as follows:
EXIT 3 (Hoyt Avenue), westbound
EXIT 5 (Steinway Street), westbound
EXIT 7 (LaGuardia Airport), eastbound
EXIT 10 (I-495 / Long Island Expressway), westbound
EXIT 13 (I-678 / Van Wyck Expressway and Jackie Robinson Parkway), eastbound
EXIT 23 (Cross Island Parkway), westbound
EXIT 24 (Little Neck Parkway), eastbound
|
|
