Palisades Interstate Parkway

Encyclopedia : P : PA : PAL : Palisades Interstate Parkway

The Palisades Interstate Parkway (PIP) is a four-lane, 42 mile (68 kilometre) long, wooded highway, generally built to freeway standards, extending from the George Washington Bridge (I-95/U.S. Route 1/US 9/US 46 and the end of NJ 4) at Fort Lee, New Jersey to the Bear Mountain Bridge (US 9W and US 202) at Fort Montgomery, New York. The route is named for the New Jersey Palisades (a line of cliffs rising along the western side of the Hudson River), and is officially designated (but not signed) Route 445 and New York State Reference Route 987C.

A spur that splits from the main road near the south end provides local access ending at US 9W and NJ 67; it is officially designated (but not signed) Route 445S. Southbound, just beyond the split, is a local exit to CR 505; traffic that stays on past that point must use the George Washington Bridge. NJ 445S is the original alignment of the PIP; what is now the main route was built later. As with most New York parkways, commercial traffic is prohibited from using the PIP. Consequently, trucks using US 6, the Grand Army Highway, between the Bear Mountain Bridge and the town of Woodbury must take a ten-mile detour via US 9W and NY 293 around the four-mile stretch of US 6 that runs concurrently with the PIP and the Long Mountain Parkway.

The Parkway was planned by A. Kenneth Morgan, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, starting in early 1940s; Morgan had been responsible for the design and operation of the 1939 New York World's Fair. The initial budget was $7 million, but World War II delayed its construction. The Parkway was built between 1947 and 1958 at a cost of $47 million to provide access to seventeen state parks and five historic sites of the Palisades Interstate Park region. The first section, from Bear Mountain to Mount Ivy, New York opened on November 30, 1953.

The parkway is now a major commuter route into New York City from Rockland and Orange counties in New York and Bergen County, New Jersey.

Sources

Myles, William J., Harriman Trails, A Guide and History, The New York-New Jersey Trail Conference, New York, N.Y., 1999.

External links

[Palisades Interstate Parkway] (at nycroads.com)
[NJ Route 445] Straight Line Diagram
[NJ Route 445S] Straight Line Diagram
[Google maps satellite image of the southern end of the Parkway]

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.