The JFK Expressway is a short
freeway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...
connecting the
Belt Parkway
The Belt Parkway is the name given to a series of connected limited-access highways that form a belt-like circle around the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The Belt Parkway comprises three of the four parkways in what is known as t ...
with
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...
in
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. It interchanges with the
Nassau Expressway
Nassau may refer to:
Places Bahamas
*Nassau, Bahamas, capital city of the Bahamas, on the island of New Providence
Canada
*Nassau District, renamed Home District, regional division in Upper Canada from 1788 to 1792
* Nassau Street (Winnipeg) ...
(
New York State Route 878 or NY 878) near the former proposed south end of the
Clearview Expressway Clearview or clear view may refer to:
Entertainment
* ''Clearview'' (album), the seventh studio album by the Finnish rock band Poets of the Fall
Companies
* Clearview AI, a facial recognition company
* Clearview Cinemas, a chain of movie theat ...
(
Interstate 295 or I-295). The roadway is the newest expressway in New York City, opened in December 1991.
Route description
![JFK Expressway overpass, Rockaway Blvd, Queens, NY Oct 2017](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b5/JFK_Expressway_overpass%2C_Rockaway_Blvd%2C_Queens%2C_NY_Oct_2017.jpg)
The JFK Expressway begins on the grounds of
John F. Kennedy International Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...
in
Queens
Queens is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York. Located on Long Island, it is the largest New York City borough by area. It is bordered by the borough of Brooklyn at the western tip of Long ...
,
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...
. The road has southbound ramps that provide access to Terminals 1-2-3, Terminal 4, and Terminals 5-6-7 along with the parking areas to Terminals 4 and 5. The northbound direction has access from all these points. The northbound direction has an exit that provides access to the
I-678
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and ...
(Van Wyck Expressway) that also provides access to long-term parking, rental car returns, as well as return access to the terminals. There is also a southbound entrance from I-678. North of here, the road continues north as a four-lane
freeway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms ...
, with a southbound exit and northbound entrance to Terminal 8. In the area, the road passes under the
AirTrain JFK
AirTrain JFK is an elevated people mover system and airport rail link serving John F. Kennedy International Airport (JFK Airport) in New York City. The driverless system operates 24/7 and consists of three lines and nine stations within the ...
people mover that serves the airport. The JFK Expressway passes under airport runways in a
tunnel
A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...
as a six-lane road and comes to an interchange with South Cargo Road, which provides access to Cargo Areas, Medical Building, Vetport, Airport Services, as well as a return route to the terminals.
The road turns to the north again and interchanges with 150th Street, with access to Long Term Parking, Rental Car Returns, and General Aviation. This interchange has no northbound exit, with the South Cargo Road interchange serving as the northbound exit. The JFK Expressway comes to an interchange with
NY 878 (Nassau Expressway) with a northbound exit to the eastbound direction, which provides access to Rockaway Boulevard, and a northbound exit and entrance in both directions to the westbound direction, which also provides access to I-678 and the westbound
Belt Parkway
The Belt Parkway is the name given to a series of connected limited-access highways that form a belt-like circle around the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens. The Belt Parkway comprises three of the four parkways in what is known as t ...
. The expressway has a northbound exit and southbound entrance with eastbound
NY 27 (South
Conduit Avenue
Conduit Avenue (Conduit Boulevard in Brooklyn) is an arterial road in New York City, the vast majority of which is in Queens. The divided highway runs from Atlantic Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn to Hook Creek Boulevard in Rosedale, Quee ...
) before merging into the eastbound direction of the Belt Parkway.
Along the southbound lanes of the JFK Expressway just south of the junction with NY 27, there is an incomplete "stub" ramp that was to lead to the westbound lanes of NY 878, which were supposed to be built as far as
Cross Bay Boulevard
Woodhaven Boulevard and Cross Bay Boulevard (formerly Jamaica Bay Boulevard) are two parts of a major boulevard in the New York City borough of Queens. Woodhaven Boulevard runs roughly north–south in the central portion of Queens. South o ...
.
The $80 million extension was cancelled in 1995.
History
Prior to the construction of the JFK Expressway, the right-of-way was occupied by Cornell Creek, which flowed through
Beaver Pond and
Baisley Pond into
Jamaica Bay
Jamaica Bay is an estuary on the southern portion of the western tip of Long Island, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. The estuary is partially man-made, and partially natural. The bay connects with Lower New York Bay to the west, ...
. 150th Street, originally Three Mile Mill Road, was later laid out along the banks of the creek. The construction of JFK Airport made the creek
subterranean, depressed underground.
The Van Wyck Expressway (
Interstate 678
Interstate 678 (I-678) is a north–south auxiliary Interstate Highway that extends for through two boroughs of New York City. The route begins at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Jamaica Bay and travels north through Queens and ...
) was first opened in 1950, connecting the airport to the
Grand Central Parkway
The Grand Central Parkway (GCP) is a 14.61-mile (23.51 km) long parkway that stretches from the Triborough Bridge in New York City to Nassau County on Long Island. At the Queens–Nassau border, it becomes the Northern State Parkway, w ...
, and later extended north to the Whitestone Expressway. At the time, it was the only expressway connected to the airport. Consequently, traffic jams often backed up the expressway for several miles north.
What is now the JFK Expressway was first proposed in the 1960s by the Port Authority, as a second short highway on the east side of the airport. The new expressway would have connected to a southern extension of the Clearview Expressway (today's
Interstate 295), providing a second north–south expressway route to the airport and connecting to the
Throgs Neck Bridge
The Throgs Neck Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City, carrying six lanes of Interstate 295 (New York), Interstate 295 (I-295) over the East River where it meets the Long Island Sound. The bridge connects the Throggs Neck section of t ...
. The connection to the Clearview would have been direct as a single expressway, or indirect and connected by the Nassau Expressway, depending on the routing of the Clearview Extension.
The existing portion of Clearview Expressway was completed in 1963 as part of
Interstate 78
Interstate 78 (I-78) is an east–west Interstate Highway in the Northeastern United States, running from I-81 northeast of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, through Allentown to western and northern New Jersey and terminating at the Holland T ...
. Due to a
freeway revolt
Highway revolts (also freeway revolts, expressway revolts, or road protests) are organized protests against the planning or construction of highways, freeways, expressways, and other civil engineering projects that favor vehicles.
Many freeway re ...
, it was only completed as far south as
Hillside Avenue Hillside may refer to the side of a hill.
Places Australia
*Hillside mine, a proposed mine on the Yorke Peninsula, South Australia
* Hillside, New South Wales
*Hillside, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne
Canada
* Hillside, Nova Scotia
United Kin ...
(
NY 25); the expressway was to continue south from Hillside Avenue to
NY 27 (
Conduit Avenue
Conduit Avenue (Conduit Boulevard in Brooklyn) is an arterial road in New York City, the vast majority of which is in Queens. The divided highway runs from Atlantic Avenue in Cypress Hills, Brooklyn to Hook Creek Boulevard in Rosedale, Quee ...
) to the Nassau Expressway in
Laurelton, with Interstate 78 proceeding west across Queens,
Brooklyn
Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...
, and
Manhattan
Manhattan (), known regionally as the City, is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the five boroughs of New York City. The borough is also coextensive with New York County, one of the original counties of the U.S. state ...
to the
Holland Tunnel
The Holland Tunnel is a vehicular tunnel under the Hudson River that connects the New York City neighborhood of Hudson Square in Lower Manhattan to the east with Jersey City in New Jersey to the west. The tunnel is operated by the Port Author ...
.
The section of Clearview Expressway between Conduit and Hillside Avenues was deemed too disruptive to the surrounding neighborhoods. It, and the rest of I-78 between the Holland Tunnel and the existing Clearview spur were cancelled by Governor
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller (July 8, 1908 – January 26, 1979), sometimes referred to by his nickname Rocky, was an American businessman and politician who served as the 41st vice president of the United States from 1974 to 1977. A member of t ...
in March 1971.
The JFK Expressway was built as part of a costly overhaul of the
JFK Airport
John F. Kennedy International Airport (colloquially referred to as JFK Airport, Kennedy Airport, New York-JFK, or simply JFK) is the main international airport serving New York City. The airport is the busiest of the seven airports in the Avia ...
that began in the late 1980s.
The highway was provisionally referred to as the 150th Street Airport Expressway or 150th Street Expressway, after the street it was replacing.
The first portion to open was the junction with the Nassau Expressway and 150th Street, the second major entrance to the airport, which was completed around 1986.
In 1991, the JFK Expressway was completed.
The JFK Expressway, lying almost exclusively within JFK Airport, is maintained by the airport's operator, the
Port Authority of New York and New Jersey
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, PANYNJ; stylized, in logo since 2020, as Port Authority NY NJ, is a joint venture between the U.S. states of New York and New Jersey, established in 1921 through an interstate compact authorized ...
(PANYNJ), along with the portions of the Van Wyck Expressway on airport grounds and all other airport roadways.
Exit list
References
External links
JFK Expressway @ NYCRoads.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Jfk Expressway
Interstate 78
Expressways in New York City
John F. Kennedy International Airport
Transportation in Queens, New York