Beach 102nd St. NB, and looking west from there along the Rockaway Freeway, whose eastbound side is under an elevated subway. While the road is limited access like a freeway (no driveways), there are frequent cross-streets at traffic lights, and it's pretty clearly not close to a freeway in any other respect. But in this city, freeways are named "Expressway."

All remaining photos are eastbound, because that's the direction that's under the el.


Heading east to the next cross street, Beach 98th (this is a pattern, here), where it seems the concrete has been scraped off of the overhead beams to allow another inch of vertical clearance for the cross street. I'm sure that's not the case, because it will just make the I-beam inside rust that much faster. More likely is that having a cross-street there made the beams deteriorate faster (being exposed to exhaust from idling vehicles, possibly something scraping or bumping the concrete cover), so they're being rehabilitated and I caught them in the middle of the project. (There's enough other evidence, as you can see, that rehab is ongoing.)


The next street (97th) used to cross the Freeway but it was cut off by striping. Other strategies for limiting access include bollards or posts in the median and physically cutting off the side street with a fence or curb.

This guy's still sticking around at Beach 94th St., the NB bridge approach.


Rockaway Freeway ends at Beach 84th St., where the subway goes through a wye to bridge to the mainland. Once on the other side, there's still a half-mile stretch of elevated tracks with no Rockaway Freeway below, but it begins again at Beach 67th St. The remaining photos were taken from Rockaway Beach Blvd. and Edgemere Ave., which parallel the Freeway to the south as far as Seagirt Blvd. Rockaway Freeway ends at Beach Channel Drive at about Beach 22nd St.


I don't know exactly where along the Freeway this sign was, but it appears to be two pillars before Seagirt Blvd. This was once a trailblazer for the Atlantic Beach Bridge, and you can see an unfaded variety on the main Rockaways page, linked below.

See more of the Rockaways
Onto Cross Bay Bridge
See more of Queens
Back to New York Roads
Back to Roads