Interstate 495 (New York)

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Interstate 495
Length: 71.02 mi[1] (114.3 km)
Formed: 1940 (LIE); 1958 (I-495)
West end: Queens Midtown Tunnel entrance in Manhattan, NY
Major
junctions:		 I-278 in Queens, NY
I-678 in Queens, NY
I-295 in Queens, NY
East end: Suffolk CR 58 in Riverhead, NY
New York State Routes
< I-490 NY 495 >

Interstate 495 (abbreviated I-495) runs 71.02 miles (114.34 km) entirely within New York state, from the Queens Midtown Tunnel in New York City to Riverhead, New York, through the boroughs of Manhattan and Queens, and Nassau and Suffolk counties, ending just before the 'fish-tail' separation of the North and South Forks of eastern Long Island. I-495 is better known by New Yorkers as the Long Island Expressway, which is often abbreviated as LIE. Within Queens, it is often subdivided by name into two sections: the Queens-Midtown Expressway from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel portal/toll plaza to the intersection over Queens Boulevard, and the Horace Harding Expressway from said intersection to the Nassau County line. It is an indirect spur route of Interstate 95 which runs in the Bronx borough of New York City as the Cross Bronx Expressway and New England Thruway.

Originally, I-495 was planned to have continued west from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel to the Lincoln Tunnel and into New Jersey to connect to the New Jersey Turnpike (which now carries parent route I-95). But because the expressway across Manhattan was not built, the part in New Jersey (which was not up to interstate standard) eventually became NJ 495.

The LIE was constructed in stages starting in 1939, when the Queens Midtown Tunnel was built, until 1972, when its Riverhead terminus was finished. Plans have existed to construct a Long Island Crossing that would extend the LIE across Long Island Sound to either Guilford, Connecticut, Old Saybrook, Connecticut, or Rhode Island via a series of existing and man-made islands, but a lack of funding and public opposition have killed these proposals.

Previously, the LIE was New York State Route 495 to the east of the Clearview Expressway (Interstate 295), but in the 1980s the NY 495 signs were taken down and I-495 extended to the east end of the LIE.

From 1994 to 2005, High-occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV) were added to I-495. Beginning with a small section in Western Suffolk County, the lanes were added in subsequent sections until their completion on June 30, 2005. There is one HOV lane in each direction, in the median of the highway. They now run from Exit 31 Cross Island Parkway to Exit 64 at Medford in central Suffolk County.

From 6:00 am to 10:00 am and from 3pm (15:00) to 8 pm (20:00) Monday through Friday, the HOV lanes are limited to buses, motorcycles, and Clean Pass vehicles without occupancy requirement and passenger vehicles with at least two occupants. Trailers and commercial trucks are always prohibited therein.[2]

Smaller highways continue on from the end of the LIE to Greenport on the North Fork and past the Hamptons to Montauk on the South Fork. Cynics have suggested that the acronym "LIE" is appropriate since, due to the high volume of traffic on it, the term "expressway" is just that, a lie. This volume of traffic has lead to the nickname of "The World's Longest Parking Lot."

Contents

[edit] Route description

Major cities

[edit] Exit list

This section contains a table that is missing mileposts for one or more junctions. You can help by adding the missing mileposts.
County Location Mile # Destinations Notes
New York New York City Western portal of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel. Western terminus of I-495.
Queens 13 Borden Avenue
1.53 14 NY 25A/21st Street/Jackson Avenue
15 Van Dam Street
16 Greenpoint Avenue/Hunters Point Avenue
2.61 17W-E I-278/Brooklyn-Queens Expressway
18 Maurice Avenue
5.27 19 NY 25 (Queens Boulevard)/Woodhaven Boulevard
20 Junction Boulevard Westbound only.
6.91 21 108th Street Eastbound only. Westbound: Use exit 22.
7.25 22A-B Grand Central Parkway TO LGA Airport.
22B-C I-678/College Point Boulevard TO JFK Airport.
8.45 23 Main Street
9.10 24 Kissena Boulevard
10.02 25 Utopia Parkway
11.04 26 Francis Lewis Boulevard Eastbound only.
11.43 27 I-295 (Clearview Expressway) Exit 4 (I-295).
28 Oceania Boulevard Westbound only.
12.31 29 Springfield Boulevard
12.91 30 East Hampton Parkway/Douglaston Parkway Eastbound only.
13.27 31 Cross Island Parkway TO JFK Airport.
Western terminus of HOV Lanes.
14.25 32 Little Neck Parkway
Nassau Lake Success 15.43 33 Lakeville Road (CR 11)/Community Drive (CR 11A)
North Hills 16.37 34 New Hyde Park Road (CR 5)
17.57 35 Shelter Rock Road (CR 8)
36 Searingtown Road (CR 101) TO NY 101.
North Hempstead town 18.95 37 Mineola Avenue-Willis Avenue (CR 71)
East Hills 20.14 38 Northern State Parkway (To Meadowbrook State Parkway) Eastbound only.
Old Westbury 20.31 39 Glen Cove Road (CR 1)
Oyster Bay town 39A Wantagh State Parkway Unbuilt. Eastbound exit, westbound entrance.
24.07 40W-E NY 25
25.23 41N-S NY 106/107
42 Northern State Parkway Same-direction connections only.
27.07 43 South Oyster Bay Road (CR 9)
27.83 44 NY 135
28.17 45 Manetto Hill Road (CR 28)/Woodbury Road (CR 12) Eastbound only.
28.95 46 Sunnyside Boulevard (CR 190)
Plainview 47 Bethpage State Parkway Unbuilt.
Nassau–Suffolk county line Plainview/Huntington 48 Round Swamp Road (Nassau CR 25/110)
Suffolk Huntington town 31.82 49N-S NY 110 Some movements via Walt Whitman Road and CR 3 (Pinelawn Road).
34.25 50 Bagatelle Road
35.87 51 NY 231
Huntington–Smithtown town line 38.56 52 CR 4 (Commack Road) Eastbound exit. Westbound: Use exit 53.
Smithtown–Islip town line 39.28 53 Sagtikos State Parkway North to Sunken Meadow State Parkway.
Islip town 39.90 54 CR 7 (Wicks Road) Access via exit 53.
41.72 55 CR 67 (Long Island Motor Parkway)
42.66 56 NY 111
Islandia 44.30 57 NY 454 TO ISP Airport.
45.64 58 Old Nichols Road
Islip town 47.50 59 CR 93 (Ocean Avenue)
Brookhaven town 48.19 60 Ronkonkoma Avenue TO ISP Airport.
Formerly CR 29.
49.62 61 CR 19 (Patchogue-Holbrook Road)
51.24 62 CR 97 (Nicolls Road) Ends at Stony Brook University.
53.04 63 CR 83 (North Ocean Avenue)
54.29 64 NY 112  
Eastern terminus of HOV Lanes.
55.44 65 CR 16 (Horse Block Road)
57.41 66 CR 101 (Sills Road)
58.55 67 CR 21 (Yaphank Avenue)
60.17 68 CR 46 (William Floyd Parkway)
64.05 69 Wading River Road Formerly CR 25.
65.25 70 CR 111
69.27 71 NY 24/CR 94 Incomplete diamond interchange.
Riverhead town 70.75 72 NY 25 Eastbound only.
71.02 73 CR 58 (Old Country Road) Eastbound exit only.
Eastern terminus of I-495. Eastbound traffic merges into CR 58.

[edit] History

[edit] Proposed interchanges and service road configurations

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As the Long Island Expressway was being built across Long Island, it was specifically being designed to accommodate certain topographical conditions and proposed interchanges.

  • Exit 30 was originally a partial cloverleaf interchange with Cross Island Parkway. Eastbound Exit 30S was for Easthampton Boulevard with a connecting ramp to the Southbound Cross Island Parkway.
  • Exit 31 was originally a Westbound Only interchange for Douglaston Parkway.
  • Exit 39 was originally a full-cloverleaf interchange. Today, the only inner ramps are from Glen Cove Road, south-to-eastbound, and north-to-westbound.
  • Exit 39A was intended for the proposed extension of the Wantagh State Parkway near Powell Road in Old Westbury. It was going to be a "Y" Interchange with an east-to-southbound only off-ramp and a north-to-westbound only on-ramp running beneath Powell Road.
  • Exit 40 originally had only same-directional off-ramps under the Expressway to realigned sections of NY 25.
  • When Exits 41 N-S was oringinally constructed, it had no south-to-west connecting ramp. Access to the expressway was provided at the nearby interchange with NY 25.
  • Exit 47 was intended for the extension of the Bethpage State Parkway near Washington Avenue in Plainview. This was to be a partial cloverleaf with southbound only off-ramps in both directions, and northbound only on-ramps in both directions. The West-to-Southbound ramp was also to have an additional connecting ramp to a two-way frontage road for a development and an industrial area.
  • The original rights-of-way for the service roads between Exits 48 and 49 were intended to weave around the steep Manetto Hills area of the main road, rather than running parallel to the road as it does today. The land between the service road and the main road was reserved for housing developments. The right-of-way for the original westbound service road still weaves through the development on the north side of the road.
  • Exit 49 was originally a cloverleaf interchange with the outer-ramps connecting to the service roads nearer to NY 110. This was in preparation for NY 110's formerly proposed upgrade into the Broad Hollow Expressway. After the project was canceled in the 1970s, the west-to-northbound on-ramp was moved to nearby Suffolk CR 3 (Pinelawn Road) and the original ramp was replaced with a Park & Ride. Other outer-ramps were eventually moved further away from NY 110.
  • Exit 52 (Commack Road/Suffolk CR 4), was intended to be moved west to an interchange with the formerly proposed Babylon-Northport Expressway(realigned NY 231) in the vicinity of the two parking areas. These ramps were supposed to be accessible from the service roads.
  • The westbound off-ramp and service road at Exit 54(Wicks Road/Suffolk CR 4) originally terminated at Long Island Motor Parkway east of Wicks Road. The westbound on-ramp was squeezed between the northwest corner of the Wicks road bridge and Exit 53. Excessive weaving between Exits 52, 53, and 54 caused the NYSDOT to reconstruct all three interchanges into one, and replace the west-to-southbound off-ramp to Sagtikos State Parkway with a flyover ramp.
  • Exit 55A was meant to be a trumpet interchange for the Hauppauge Spur of NY 347, between Long Island Motor Parkway(Exit 55) and NY 111(Exit 56). The service roads were supposed to go around the interchange, rather than run parallel to the main road. Ramps on the east side of Motor Parkway and west side of NY 111 were to be eliminated.
  • Prior to the construction of the interchange with Nicolls Road (Suffolk CR 97), Exit 62 was for Morris Avenue and Waverly Avenue eastbound, and Morris Avenue westbound.
  • Between Exits 63 and 64 the eastbound service road was supposed to weave around a recharge basin and replace a local residential street. Residents would have lived on both sides of the service road, similar to the segment between Exits 59 and 60.
  • Exit 68 was originally planned to be built as a cloverleaf interchange without collective-distributor roads. additionally in the 1970's, Suffolk County Department of Public Works was proposing an extension of East Main Street in Yaphank (Suffolk CR 102), that would've terminated at the west end of this interchange.
  • In the 1960s and 1970s Suffolk County Planning Department was considering an extension of Suffolk CR 55 to the Grumman Calverton Naval Air Base. This would have provided an additional interchange known as Exit 70A.[citation needed]
  • Exit 71 was intended to be a cloverleaf interchange with Nugent Drive, and an additional Hamptons Spur of the Long Island Expressway.

[edit] Maps

Old exits 38 and 39.

The extension of the Wantagh Parkway to the L.I.E.

Jericho Old Ramps

Bethpage-Northern Parkway-LIE Triangle

[edit] Notes

Originally, I-495 was to stretch from the Queens Midtown Tunnel and I-278 to I-295, the Clearview Expressway. Plans later included creating the Mid-Manhattan Expressway across Manhattan to the Lincoln Tunnel, to connect to I-95 in New Jersey. These plans were eventually canceled, and the NJ stretch of I-495 was downgraded to a NJ state highway. However, Long Island lobbied to extend I-495 east, upgrading NY 24 to NY 495 and then I-495, to Riverhead where it terminates at NY 25. Since I-495 extends from a city outward, it is technically a spur, which should have an odd first digit. Even first digits are usually assigned to bypasses and beltways. A proposed Orient-Watch Hill Bridge would have connected I-495 back to I-95 in Rhode Island.

One could argue that the highway is technically only referred to as the Long Island Expressway in Nassau and Suffolk counties, while in Queens, the service roads are called the Queens-Midtown Expressway (between the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway and Queens Boulevard) and Horace Harding Expressway (between Queens Boulevard and the Nassau County line), and are generally signed as such like any other city streets. It is common to refer to the service roads by these names - particularly Horace Harding - in local usage, for instance when referring to the location of a business on that address. The names may have been intended to refer to sections of the expressway proper, but current guide signs simply refer to it as the Long Island Expressway.

Horace J. Harding (1863-1929) was a finance magnate who directed the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company and the New York Municipal Railways System. Harding used his influence to promote the development of Long Island’s roadways, lending strong support to Robert Moses’s “great parkway plan.” Harding also urged construction of a highway from Queens Boulevard to the Nassau County Line, in order to provide better access to Oakland Country Club, where he was a member. After his death, the Queens-Nassau County section of the LIE was named for Harding. Horace Harding was not related to the former President Warren G. Harding.

The LIE has often been termed the "World's Longest Parking Lot" due to its notoriously bad traffic jams; however, that title is now somewhat erroneous. Many Long Island residents admit, thanks in part to recently finished construction of an HOV lane stretching from the Queens border to Exit 64, that the LIE tends to move better than the island's east-west parkways, the Northern State Parkway and the Southern State Parkway. Traffic jams still occur in the Queens and western Nassau sections of the LIE during rush hour.

Suffolk County Road 48 was originally intended to become part of the North Fork extension of the Long Island Expressway.

The oldest tree in the New York metropolitan area, called the "Queens Giant," is very close to the Long Island Expressway in northeastern Queens (near the Douglaston Plaza Mall), and is visible while driving westbound. The Queens Giant is also the tallest tree in the New York metro area.

Singer Harry Chapin died on July 16, 1981, in an automobile accident on the Long Island Expressway at the age of 38. He was headed to perform a concert in Eisenhower Park in Nassau County when his car was struck by a truck. An autopsy showed that he had suffered a heart attack, but it could not be determined whether that occurred before or after the collision. Supermarkets General, the owner of the truck, paid $12 million to his widow in the ensuing litigation.

Oscar-winning film director Alan J. Pakula was killed in a car accident on the LIE on November 19, 1998. Pakula lost control of his car after a metal pipe kicked up by a car in front of Pakula's crashed through his windshield and struck him in the head, causing him to lose control of the car and crash it into a fence.

[edit] See also

 Auxiliary routes of Interstate 95
I-195 Florida - Maine - Maryland - Massachusetts/Rhode Island - New Jersey - Virginia
I-295 Delaware/New Jersey - District of Columbia/Maryland - Florida - Massachusetts/Rhode Island - Maine - New York - North Carolina - Virginia
I-395 Connecticut/Massachusetts - District of Columbia/Virginia - Florida - Maryland - Maine
I-495 Delaware - District of Columbia/Maryland/Virginia - Maine - Massachusetts - New York
I-595 Florida - Maryland
I-695 District of Columbia - Maryland - New York
I-795 Maryland
I-895 Maryland - New York - Massachusetts/Rhode Island
past/
future		 I-495: New Jersey
I-595: Virginia
I-695: Massachusetts - New Jersey - Pennsylvania
I-795: Florida - Virginia
I-895: Delaware - New Jersey/Pennsylvania - Virginia

[edit] References

  • Suffolk County Planning Department
  • Old Hagstroms Maps and Road Atlases
  1. ^ New York Routes - Interstate 495
  2. ^ Long Island Transportation Management, Inc. - HOV Lane Information

[edit] External links

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