PLANS BEFORE THE VAN WYCK: In 1941, the New York City Planning Department unveiled plans for a network of express highways and parkways. Specifically, three express highways were to provide access from northern Queens and Manhattan, to southern Queens and Nassau County, as follows:
This section proved to be no small task to construct. Moses had to lift in the air the busiest section of commuter railroad in the world, the Long Island Rail Road switching yards and terminal in Jamaica. Even as 1,100 commuter trains per day passed by overhead, Moses was able to slide the expressway under the railroad yards during a seven-month period. Furthermore, construction of the expressway included a network of roadways inside the airport.
Thomas Scannello, webmaster of oldnyc.com and frequent contributor to nycroads.com, provided his opinion on the design of this section of the Van Wyck Expressway as follows:
More from an e-mail sent by Paul A. Williamson:
I lived near the intersection of 97th Avenue and Van Wyck Boulevard in Jamaica from 1943 until mid-1952. I was seven years old in 1948 and was fascinated by the big trucks (old time chain drive Mack trucks) and this gigantic project going on in my neighborhood. My friends and I would sneak down into the construction site in the evening (city life for children was simpler in the late 1940's than it is now). The hole, the below-street level roadway under construction, seemed a thousand feet deep to me then.
There was an apartment house on Van Wyck Boulevard at 97th Avenue, about seven stories high, that was moved out of the way on rollers such that after it was resettled what had been the back door became the new front door. My mother once introduced me to a burly construction worker in the neighborhood Bohack grocery that she said actually "pushed the building across the road", an exaggeration that I believed for years after.
Finally, I have a memory of General Douglas Macarthur being welcomed home in 1952 on the then, either recently opened or about to be opened, Van Wyck Expressway.
One fateful decision would condemn motorists for many years to come. From Robert A. Caro's "The Power Broker:"
Three lanes of this particular expressway could, under optimum conditions, carry each hour 2,630 vehicles, most of them bearing a single passenger. One lane of rapid transit could, under optimum conditions, carry 40,000 persons per hour. Build the Van Wyck with rapid transit, and you would be insuring that, for generations, persons traveling to Idlewild would be able to get there with speed - an express trip from Pennsylvania Station in mid-Manhattan to the airport would take exactly sixteen minutes - and comfort.
Building the Van Wyck with rapid transit would, moreover, be easy. The north-south expressway was going to cross Queens Boulevard in Kew Gardens. A subway - the IND east-west line (E and F lines) running out from mid-Manhattan - crossed that very intersection. When it reached that intersection, moreover, it slanted south - by coincidence, toward Idlewild - for about a mile before heading east again. During that mile, its tracks lay almost precisely beneath the right-of-way that Moses was even then acquiring for the Van Wyck. Nine expensive miles of rapid transit link between mid-Manhattan and Idlewild were already completed. All that was needed to complete a rapid transit link was to bring that subway up to the expressway's center mall and extend it for another three miles.
Moreover, another subway - the IND's Fulton Avenue line (A line), coming out from lower Manhattan through downtown Brooklyn - ran close to Idlewild's western edge. Build a branch of that line into the airport, and travelers from lower Manhattan - including the Wall Street business district from which come so large a proportion of the airport's users - would also be able to reach it by train.
Before the expressway was built, a temporary extension of the IND (E and F) subway line occupied the Van Wyck right-of-way. The temporary subway line served the 1939-1940 World's Fair at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, and was dismantled after the Fair closed.
Improving upon the design concepts of the original expressway, the refinements along the six-lane northern extension included paved shoulders, longer acceleration and deceleration lanes, and crash attenuators. Nearly one mile of the expressway is elevated in the area of the Long Island Expressway (I-495) and Flushing Meadows-Corona Park.
EARLY USE OF AUTOMATED TRAFFIC CONTROL: In 1969, an automated traffic control system was implemented along the southern 3.7 miles of the Van Wyck Expressway. The system, a precursor of today's INFORM system on Long Island, uses ramp signals and variable message signs to control traffic on the expressway.
THE I-678 DESIGNATION: The I-678 designation was not given to the Van Wyck Expressway until the early 1970's. According to maps prior to that time, the then-unsigned I-678 designation first went along the unbuilt Astoria Expressway through northwest Queens, and then along the Grand Central Parkway.
From Ralph Herman, frequent contributor to nycroads.com and misc.transport.road:
I first discovered that I-678 was extended to Kennedy Airport when I saw the NYSDOT TMM's on the Van Wyck Expressway. The markers and guide signs appeared on the expressway later in the 1970's.
The I-678 designation along the Van Wyck Expressway actually begins at EXIT 1 (Belt Parkway / NY 878-Nassau Expressway / NY 27-Conduit Avenue), just beyond the northern boundary of JFK Airport. Within the confines of the airport, the expressway is maintained by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and therefore does not appear in the NYSDOT route log as I-678.
FIXING THE VAN WYCK VIADUCT: In March 1988, the southbound Van Wyck Expressway at EXIT 13 (NY 25A-Northern Boulevard) in Flushing was closed for several weeks after NYSDOT and NYCDOT workers discovered that three of five steel beams supporting the 40-foot-high southbound viaduct were seriously corroded. Tragedy was averted when a truck driver noticed that a large roadway slab had slipped down four inches, creating a serious bump, and called the police. The police shut down the roadway while work crews arrived at the scene.
TAKE THE TRAIN TO THE PLANE: Between 1978 and 1990, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) ran "The Train to the Plane," an express service that ran along the A line from Manhattan to Howard Beach, Queens. However, this was not a direct service: commuters had to take a shuttle bus from the Howard Beach (the IND A line) station to Kennedy Airport. The inconvenient transfers and relatively high $4.00 fare contributed to low ridership, ultimately killing the service.
In April 1998, the Port Authority awarded an initial $930 million construction contract and a $105 million to a consortium of companies. Construction of the three-line elevated rail system known as "Airtrain" began five months later. The three separate lines were developed as develops:
AIRTRAIN CONSTRUCTION: Tom Scannello, creator of the oldnyc.com website, posted the following comment on the Airtrain project in the misc.transport.road and nyc.transit newsgroups back in 1999:
This should be an interesting project to watch once it gets underway. When the Van Wyck was built, engineers had to lift the LIRR tracks above the expressway. That was a difficult task. This new train project will prove to be very challenging to the engineers.
Construction activity began in October 1999 with the re-striping of the north and southbound lanes between EXIT 1 (Belt Parkway) and EXIT 5 (Atlantic Avenue), and pile driving for guideway construction began six months later. Along the five-mile-long Airtrain route, 327 columns were erected, supporting 332 guideway spans (each measuring 110 to 130 feet). Closer to the Kennedy Airport terminals, workers constructed a cut-and-cover tunnel under the taxiways. The tunnel parallels the existing expressway underpass.
Further north along the expressway, work included site restoration, repaving, reconstruction of entrance and exit ramps (including extension of acceleration-deceleration lanes), and construction of retaining walls.
Even during construction, the Airtrain project continued to serve as a lighting rod for controversy. During an overnight construction period in June 2000, arsonists set fire to a 120-foot-high crane that was being used to assemble the concrete stanchions, causing $1.8 million in damage. More controversy was stirred in September 2002, when test operator Kevin DeBourgh was killed by falling cinder blocks that were used by simulate the weight of Airtrain passengers.
THE EXPRESSWAY TODAY: The Van Wyck Expressway serves as a vital link between east-west arteries, the East River bridges and JFK Airport. From the Whitestone interchange south to the Kew Gardens interchange, approximately 110,000 vehicles per day (AADT) travel the six lanes of expressway. With the same six-lane capacity, nearly 160,000 vehicles per day travel the section between the Kew Gardens interchange and JFK Airport.
CURRENT AND FUTURE IMPROVEMENTS: The NYSDOT and the New York Metropolitan Transportation Council have scheduled the following projects along the Van Wyck Expressway:
ON WIDENING THE EXPRESSWAY: To alleviate chronic congestion on the Van Wyck Expressway, many have suggested widening the route. However, this suggestion has been met with vociferous opposition from local communities along the route.
To ease congestion and permit safer merging between Kennedy Airport and the Kew Gardens interchange, the entrance and exit ramps should be reconfigured. This will allow for construction of a fourth lane in each direction.
According to Mark Kulewicz, director of traffic engineering and safety service at the Automobile Club of New York (the local affiliate of the AAA), the $600 million Van Wyck Expressway widening proposal could carry as many as 3,000 additional people per hour, about as many as the proposed Airtrain would carry each day.
Recently, there has been some speculation in misc.transport.road that the temporary outside lanes built for the Airtrain construction may eventually be converted to permanent lanes, providing four lanes of traffic in each direction. Ralph Herman put this speculation to rest as follows:
SOURCES: "Master Plan: Express Highways, Parkways and Major Streets," New York City Planning Department (1941); "Airport Highway To Open This Year" by Joseph C. Ingraham, The New York Times (1/24/1950); "Opening Set Today for Road Links," The New York Times (10/14/1950); "All Major Roads to World's Fair Expected To Be Ready in a Month" by Bernard Stengren, The New York Times (12/28/1963); Arterial Progress 1959-1965 , Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (1965); "New System To Maintain Flow on Van Wyck," The New York Times (8/15/1969); The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro, Vintage Books-Random House (1974); "A New Transit Plan for Airport Gaining" by Irvin Molotsky, The New York Times (6/08/1980); "Sign of Collapse Leads to Closing Of Queens Road" by George James, The New York Times (3/03/1988); "MTA Proposes Rail Line to Link Major Airports" by Calvin Sims, The New York Times (3/18/1990); "JFK Rail Plan Gets Rudy's OK" by Douglas Feiden, New York Daily News (10/01/1997); "Plan for Rail Link Between Manhattan and JFK Airport Gains" by David Rohde, The New York Times (4/17/1998); "The Legend of Rip Van Wyck" by Mark Kulewicz, Car and Travel-Automobile Club of New York (February 1999); "Council Report: Train to the Plane Is Simply Insane" by Gary McLendon, The Queens Tribune (4/22/1999); "Manhattan to Kennedy Train Wins Pivotal Approval" by Vivian S. Toy, The New York Times (6/03/1999); "Port Authority Won Uphill Battle To Build the Train to the Plane" by Dan Barry, The New York Times (6/06/1999); "Full Speed Ahead for Airtrain Despite Arson and Protests" by David Oats, The Queens Tribune (6/07/2000); "Problem Areas for Van Wyck-GCP Repair Noted" by Linda J. Wilson, The Queens Gazette (7/24/2003); "Airtrain Set To Open: Right on Track?" by Jeremy Olshan, The Queens Tribune (12/04/2003); "State Eyes Traffic Changes at LIE / GCP / Van Wyck Interchange" by Robert Brodsky, The Queens Chronicle (5/13/2004); "Whitestone Roadwork Delayed Once Again" by Liz Rhoades, The Queens Chronicle (5/03/2007); "End in Sight for Van Wyck Work, but More Still Ahead" by Theresa Juva, The Queens Chronicle (5/24/2007); "Tragic Toll of Queens Roadway" by Angela Montefinese, New York Post (2/24/2008); Committee for Better Transit; New York Metropolitan Transportation Council; New York State Department of Transportation; Vollmer Associates; John Anderson; Daniel T. Dey; Hank Eisenstein; Marvin Gruza; Ralph Herman; Nathan W. Perry; Peter Rosa; Jeff Saltzman; Tom Scannello; Dobrow Stephen; Paul A. Williamson; Douglas A. Willinger.