Northern State Parkway | |
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Map of Long Island with Northern State Parkway highlighted in red
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Route information | |
Maintained by NYSDOT | |
Length: | 28.88 mi (46.48 km) |
Existed: | July 15, 1933 – present |
History: | First section opened July 15, 1933 Full length opened June 9, 1965 |
Restrictions: | No commercial vehicles |
Major junctions | |
West end: | Grand Central Parkway in Lake Success |
I-495 in East Williston Meadowbrook State Parkway in Mineola Wantagh State Parkway in Westbury NY 135 in Plainview I-495 in Plainview Sagtikos State Parkway / Sunken Meadow State Parkway in Commack |
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East end: | NY 347 / NY 454 in Hauppauge |
Location | |
Counties: | Nassau, Suffolk |
Highway system | |
The Northern State Parkway (also known as the Northern State or Northern Parkway) is a 28.88-mile-long (46.48 km) limited-access state parkway on Long Island in the U.S. state of New York. The western terminus is at the Queens–Nassau County line, where the parkway continues westward into New York City as the Grand Central Parkway. The eastern terminus is at New York State Route 347 (NY 347) and NY 454 in Hauppauge. The parkway is designated New York State Route 908G (NY 908G), an unsigned reference route. As its name implies, the parkway services communities along the northern half of the island.
In western Nassau County the parkway sports six lanes, three eastbound and three westbound, narrowing to four lanes total in central Nassau at the Wantagh Parkway (exit 33) and through its twelve miles (19 km) or so in western Suffolk County, where it ends. It was constructed in stages throughout the 1930s and again post-World War II in the late 1940s/early 1950s until it reached its current terminus in Hauppauge in 1965. The Northern State Parkway is an eastern extension of the Grand Central Parkway. It was part of master planner Robert Moses' extensive road-building campaign and was built as a sister road to the Southern State Parkway. In recent years its design has quickly become dated due to an increase in commuter traffic using the roadway, and numerous improvements have been made (including the widening from four to six lanes in Central Nassau west to the Nassau-Queens line where it becomes the Grand Central) or are still on paper.