Bronx River Parkway

The Bronx River Parkway (or Bronx Parkway) is a 19.12-mile (30.77 km) long parkway in downstate New York in the United States. It is named for the nearby Bronx River, which it parallels. The southern terminus of the parkway is at Story Avenue near the Bruckner Expressway 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 (NY 22). Within the Bronx, the parkway is maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation and is designated New York State Route 907H (NY 907H), an unsigned reference route. In Westchester County, the parkway is maintained by the Westchester County Department of Public Works and is designated unsigned County Route 9987 (CR 9987).

Route Description
The southern third of the parkway, in the Bronx, is exclusively limited-access. It serves as a commuter route, intersecting several major east–west routes. Halfway through the borough it begins to closely parallel the Harlem Line of Metro-North Railroad, a pairing which continues to the road's northern terminus. In Westchester County, the road continues to have the same character until the Sprain Brook Parkway splits off at Bronxville, allowing most through traffic to bypass White Plains. The stretches north of that junction have more of the original park character, and are still used that way. North of White Plains the exits are at-grade intersections with traffic lights.

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 Parkway 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 Bronx River Parkway was the first highway to utilize a median strip to separate the opposing lanes, the first highway constructed through a park, and the first highway where intersecting streets crossed over bridges.

The Westchester section of the Bronx River Parkway first opened to traffic in 1922 and was completed in 1925. A new roadway in the New York City borough of the Bronx including an extension south of the former Botanical Gardens/Burke Avenue terminus opened in 1951. That extension diverges eastward from the river.

From 1953 to 1955, a 2.6-mile (4.2 km) segment of the parkway between Bronxville and the Bronx was closed to straighten and widen the road. During this reconstruction period, a new overpass was also built for the Cross County Parkway.

In 1957, a half mile stretch of the Parkway between Woodland Viaduct in White Plains and the Scarsdale border was reconstructed to eliminate sharp dips and twists that purportedly provided a "roller coaster-like" effect for drivers.[33]

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.[34] Of a pair of former gas stations on the outer margins of the roadway in Westchester near Crestwood, the southbound one is currently being used as a Westchester County Police Sub-Station, and the northbound used only as a tourist information stand.[35]

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 beginning in the 1970s. The original interchange is now exit 11W.

In 2009 the northbound exit ramp to Oak Street in Yonkers was replaced by an exit to Yonkers Avenue, a block to the south. From 2012 to 2015, a realignment and bridge replacement project was carried out in Scarsdale.[36]

Truncation and extension
The Bronx River Parkway originally went beyond its northern terminus at Kensico Circle to NY Route 22 northbound. Today, the most obvious route through the circle leads motorists directly to and from the Taconic State Parkway, 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 CR 68. Prior to heightened security measures enacted post-September 11 motorists could take the road that leads towards NY 22 and then drive across the top of the Kensico Dam and eventually re-connect with the Taconic State Parkway.[37]

An extension from the southern terminus in the Bronx into Soundview Park was proposed until the 1970s.[38]

Westchester designation
The southernmost portion of the parkway in Westchester, south of the Sprain, is internally designated as NY 907G, an unsigned reference route,[39] 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 counts[1] and the entirety of the parkway in the county is considered a county route by Westchester County.[40]

The parkway was documented by the Historic American Engineering Record in 2001. Drawings and photographs from the documentation project were made available through the Westchester County Archives, winning an award of excellence from the Lower Hudson Conference.