Belt Parkway

[Roadman66]

Why is this road so terrible?

Any room for improvements? Limited merge room, high rate of speed, which should be lowered especially going through Brooklyn and passing apartments and houses, potholes every mile, crappy bridge work, and poor signage.

[Alps]

NYCDOT maintenance - they have a lot of roads to maintain, and it's not fair to the city that the state dumped all their roads onto the city for maintenance.

[SignBridge]

The Belt Pkwy. from the Verrazano Bridge to the Nassau County Line is and has been a garbage road for the last 40 years. I've seen bumper-to-bumper traffic for that entire stretch. The only thing that makes it any better than the BQE or CBX is the absence of large trucks. But even the CBX is only 5 miles long if you get caught up in a jam.

I've been saying since back in the 1970's that whole stretch of parkway needs a complete rebuilding, with 5 lanes in each direction!!!! Heck, the whole original N.J. Turnpike was built in 2 years! The whole Grand Central/Northern State Pkwy. from the RFK Bridge to Old Westbury was done over 10 years from 1962-72. I don't care what it takes. Even 5 years if necessary and charge tolls on the friggin' road to pay for it, but just get it the heck done already! It's already 40 years late!

[NJRoadfan]

The main problem with the Belt is the lack of any decent parallel corridor, so all the traffic just piles onto it to get to JFK, Queens, and Eastern LI.

[Lyle]

Why is this road so terrible?

Any room for improvements? Limited merge room, high rate of speed, which should be lowered especially going through Brooklyn and passing apartments and houses, potholes every mile, crappy bridge work, and poor signage.

I used to travel the Belt Parkway all the time back when I lived in Brooklyn. There have been some improvements over the last few years. I remember back in the mid-1980's they lengthened many of the acceleration and deceleration lanes and rebuilt a couple of bridges. About five years or so ago, they rebuilt the Ocean Parkway exit (Exit 7) with longer exit/entrance lanes and even full-width (or almost full-width) outer shoulders.  And back when I left in the Summer of 2010, they were rebuilding the Belt Parkway between Flatbush and Pennsylvania Avenues. I also read that the drawbridge was to be replaced with a fixed bridge, also with wider shoulders, but I have not been there lately, so I don't know what's going on now. I'm not saying it's perfect, but I have certainly seen worse.

What's wrong with the signage? I remember it being pretty good.

The main problem with the Belt is the lack of any decent parallel corridor, so all the traffic just piles onto it to get to JFK, Queens, and Eastern LI.

From what I remember, the heaviest traffic was westbound near Kennedy Airport. Eastbound traffic in that area wasn't too bad because you had the Nassau Expressway. They really should build the Nassau Expressway westbound like they have said they would. Unfortunately, I doubt they ever will.

- Lyle

[1995hoo]

....

I've been saying since back in the 1970's that whole stretch of parkway needs a complete rebuilding, with 5 lanes in each direction!!!! Heck, the whole original N.J. Turnpike was built in 2 years! The whole Grand Central/Northern State Pkwy. from the RFK Bridge to Old Westbury was done over 10 years from 1962-72. I don't care what it takes. Even 5 years if necessary and charge tolls on the friggin' road to pay for it, but just get it the heck done already! It's already 40 years late!

They spent quite a long time in the 1980s rebuilding the viaduct, or at least some part of it, over the subway yards just north of Coney Island. I recall how the inner carriageway (going towards Bay Ridge) used a temporary road that passed the Gil Hodges Little League facility basically at ground level and then rose over the subway yards at a lower level than the normal road. Seemed like that project took forever. I've always hated the open sewer grates in the side lanes. When I was growing up, my grandparents lived in Bay Ridge and we went to the beach at Breezy Point (via the Belt Parkway from 4th Avenue to Flatbush Avenue, then over the Marine Parkway Bridge) in my grandfather's car whenever we visited. Those sewer grates made the car bounce all over the place. Driving in New York City all the time isn't exactly great for your shocks to begin with, but his cars used to feel like an amusement-park ride whenever we were on the Belt Parkway.

As far as "why is the road so terrible" goes, one thing to remember is that it was built a long time ago (the main Brooklyn part was built by 1940, I believe). Design standards were simply quite different and there wasn't nearly as much traffic. It's also an urban road in a very crowded area, making any sort of reconstruction very difficult, very expensive, and very disruptive.

[SignBridge]

1995, everything you've said about the road is true, and thats why a complete rebuilding/widening is so desperately needed. Like I said, I don't care what it takes, even tolls on the new road if necessary, but it must be done!

The cost of continued inaction is worse!

[D-Dey65]

From what I remember, the heaviest traffic was westbound near Kennedy Airport. Eastbound traffic in that area wasn't too bad because you had the Nassau Expressway. They really should build the Nassau Expressway westbound like they have said they would. Unfortunately, I doubt they ever will.

- Lyle

They should do more than that. They should build the whole Nassau Expressway, including closing the gap at Rockaway Boulevard, and converting the segment southwest of Rockaway Boulevard into a REAL expressway. Beyond that, they should create an extension to Long Beach, revive the Bushwick Expressway. relocate the subways that run along the rickety Williamsburg Bridge under the East River, replace that bridge and revive the Lower Manhattan Expressway!

[Alps]

From what I remember, the heaviest traffic was westbound near Kennedy Airport. Eastbound traffic in that area wasn't too bad because you had the Nassau Expressway. They really should build the Nassau Expressway westbound like they have said they would. Unfortunately, I doubt they ever will.

- Lyle

They should do more than that. They should build the whole Nassau Expressway, including closing the gap at Rockaway Boulevard, and converting the segment southwest of Rockaway Boulevard into a REAL expressway. Beyond that, they should create an extension to Long Beach, revive the Bushwick Expressway. relocate the subways that run along the rickety Williamsburg Bridge under the East River, replace that bridge and revive the Lower Manhattan Expressway!

And you should take it to Fictional Highways

[Phil42089]

Just a few notes here on the Belt Parkway- They are currently rebuilding it between Flatbush Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.  They are just about 3 years into the work now and recently the new eastbound alignment and eastbound bridge over Paederdgat basin (the bridge just east of the draw bridge) was opened to traffic.  Here's a link to the NYC DOT outline of what they are doing:  http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/beltpkwybrgs_eng.pdf

While the road badly needed the work, if you ask me, it is part of the old talked about plan to allow truck traffic on the Belt between the Verazzano and JFK but that's just my opinion. 

[Alps]

Just a few notes here on the Belt Parkway- They are currently rebuilding it between Flatbush Avenue and Pennsylvania Avenue.  They are just about 3 years into the work now and recently the new eastbound alignment and eastbound bridge over Paederdgat basin (the bridge just east of the draw bridge) was opened to traffic.  Here's a link to the NYC DOT outline of what they are doing:  http://www.nyc.gov/html/dot/downloads/pdf/beltpkwybrgs_eng.pdf

While the road badly needed the work, if you ask me, it is part of the old talked about plan to allow truck traffic on the Belt between the Verazzano and JFK but that's just my opinion. 

Unlikely, for the sole reason that the connecting ramps from 278 are horribly substandard and not going to be upgraded.

[SignBridge]

Steve, you mean the ramps from the Verrazano Bridge? Yes, they are very tight curves, definitely not for big trucks...........