BRONX RIVER PARKWAY

The 'Bronx River Parkway' is a long parkway in downstate New York. The southern terminus of the parkway is at Story Avenue near Interstate 278 in the Bronx neighborhood of Soundview. The northern terminus is at the Kensico Circle in North Castle, Westchester County, where the parkway connects to the Taconic State Parkway and, via a short connector, New York State Route 22. Within the Bronx, the parkway is maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation and is designated 'New York State Reference Route 907H', an unsigned reference route. In Westchester County, the parkway is maintained by the Westchester County Department of Public Works and is designated unsigned 'Westchester County Route 9987'.
The parkway is named for the nearby Bronx River, which it parallels. All exits on the parkway, including the traffic light-controlled intersections in Westchester County, have interchange numbers. The term "Bronx River Parkway" originally referred to the entire Bronx River Reservation, of which the road is a portion, but current usage of the term confines it to the roadway, including the portion which now continues southward beyond the Reservation.

Contents

Route description

History

Late exit modifications

Truncation and extension

Westchester designation

Exit list

References

External links

Route description

A seven-mile section of the Bronx River Parkway in Westchester County is closed to motorist traffic from 10 AM to 2 PM every Sunday in April, May, June, September and October (with the exception of Memorial and Labor Day weekends), allowing bicyclists to venture along the scenic road. Another section north of the one reserved for bicyclists is reserved for inline skating.

History

Construction began in Westchester County in 1907, making it the earliest limited-access automobile highway to start construction. However, although construction on the Long Island Motor Parkway began a year later, a section of the Long Island road opened for traffic before the end of 1908, opening before the Bronx River as the first limited access automobile highway to be put into use. Neither was up to modern freeway standards, utilizing left turns across the opposing direction at access points.
The Westchester section of the Bronx River Parkway was completed in 1923. A new roadway in the New York City Borough of the Bronx including an extension south of the former Botanical Gardens/Burke Avenue terminus was added between 1946 and 1950. That extension diverges eastward from the river.

Late exit modifications

During the 1960s and since then an entrance and exit on the northbound side between current exits 5 and 6 in the Bronx, and an associated U-turn from southbound to northbound, formerly open to general traffic, were reserved for official use by police and the Parks Dept. which maintains an office there. This was around the time other U-turns were being eliminated from various parkways in New York City.
A gas station in the wide median between Bronx exits 7 and 8, north of the pedestrian overpass to the Botanical Garden, was closed due to fire in the early 1980s and has since been razed and the median relandscaped. Of a pair of former gas stations on the outer margins of the roadway in Westchester near Crestwood, the southbound one has been demolished and the northbound used only as a tourist information stand.
The interchange with the Cross County Parkway did not provide direct access to and from both directions of the latter until extra ramps and an extra overpass were provided in the 1970s. The original interchange is now exit 11W.

Truncation and extension

The Bronx River Parkway originally went beyond the circle to New York State Route 22 northbound. Today, the most obvious route through the circle leads motorists right to and from the Taconic, and the way to NY 22 northbound is considered to be a little spur off the circle. This spur from the Kensico Circle to NY 22 is unsigned 'County Route 68'.
An extension into Sound View Park was proposed until the 1970s.

Westchester designation

The southernmost portion of the parkway in Westchester, south of the Sprain, is 'Reference Route 907G'^[3] in apparent violation of the numbering standard. Ordinarily, the second digit should be the region. New York City and Long Island, regions 10 and 11, share 0; Westchester is region 8 (the Hutchinson River Parkway also shares this oddity). The section south of here is marked only with reference markers, and the section north only with county mileposts. This middle section has county mileposts in the middle, and reference markers with state mileposts (counting from the southern terminus in the Bronx, not the city line) alongside. However, Reference Route 907G is no longer listed in the NYSDOT traffic counts¹ and the entirety of the parkway in the county is considered a county route by Westchester County.^[4]

Exit list

County	Location	Mile12	#	Destinations	Notes
Bronx	Soundview	0.00	1	Story Avenue	Southbound exit, northbound entrance
			2E-W	Bruckner Boulevard to I-278 (Bruckner Expressway)	Metcalf Avenue accessible from exit 2W northbound
	West Farms		3	Westchester Avenue	Southbound exit and entrance
		0.80	4	I-95 (Cross-Bronx Expressway)
			5	East 177th Street to I-895 (Sheridan Expressway)	No northbound exit
	Bronx Park		6	Boston Road/Jungle World Road
		2.30	7E-W	to Pelham Parkway
		3.10	8E-W	Southern Boulevard/Allerton Avenue	No exit 8E southbound; no west-to-south entrance
	Williamsbridge	4.00	9	East Gun Hill Road
	Woodlawn	5.40	10	Webster Avenue to East 233rd Street (south) East 236th Street to East 233rd Street (north)
Westchester	Yonkers		10A	Bronx River Road	Southbound exit and entrance
			10B	Oak Street
		7.87	11E-W	Cross County Parkway
		8.86		Sprain Brook Parkway north	Northbound exit only
			1A	Desmond Avenue – Bronxville, Yonkers	Southbound exit, northbound entrance
			1	Paxton Avenue – Bronxville	No southbound exit
			2	Pondfield Road West – Bronxville, Yonkers	Northbound exit only
			3	Elm Street – Tuckahoe	Northbound exit and entrance
		End limited-access highway northbound; begin limited-access highway southbound
		9.26	4	Scarsdale Road – Crestwood, Tuckahoe	At-grade intersection
			6	Read Avenue – Crestwood, Tuckahoe	No entrance from Read Avenue; south-north and north-south connections only
			7	Thompson Street	Northbound exit and entrance
			8	Vermont Terrace – Crestwood	Southbound exit and entrance
			9	Leewood Drive – Eastchester	At-grade intersection
		12.26	10	Strathmore Road/Harney Road – Yonkers, Eastchester, Scarsdale	At-grade intersection
	Greenburgh		11	Popham Road/Ardsley Road – Yonkers, Scarsdale, Greenburgh	Southbound exit and entrance
	Scarsdale	13.28	12	Crane Road – Scarsdale	At-grade intersection
			13	Ogden Road	Northbound exit and entrance
			14	Butler Road	Northbound exit and entrance
		15.41	15	Fenimore Road/Fisher Road – Hartsdale	Northbound exit, southbound entrance
			16	Greenacres Avenue – Hartsdale	Southbound exit only
			18	Claremont Road	Northbound exit and entrance
	White Plains		19	Walworth Crossing	Northbound exit and entrance
			21	Main Street – White Plains (north) Chatterton Avenue (south)	No northbound entrance
		16.74	22	Westchester County Center/To NY 100/NY 119 – White Plains	At-grade intersection
			23	Cemetery Road/Old Tarrytown Road	At-grade intersection
			24	Fisher Lane – North White Plains	At-grade intersection
			25	Parkway Homes Road – North White Plains	At-grade intersection
		18.60	26	Virginia Road	At-grade intersection
	North Castle		27	Lafayette Road	Northbound only; at-grade intersection
		19.12	Kensico Circle; direct connection to Taconic State Parkway

References

1. Traffic Data Report - NY 427 to NY 908F
2. Bronx River Parkway traffic counts (Westchester County)
3. NYSDOT List of Parkways
4. Westchester County, New York County and State Roads and Parks

External links

★ Bronx River Parkway

★ The Bronx River Parkway Reservation Today

★ Bronx River Parkway reservation

★ History of Scenic Road Programs - New York: Westchester County Parkways