New York Roads - Rockaways

The Rockaways

Rockaway and its siblings are isolated from the rest of Queens by Jamaica Bay, which allows them to be reached from New York City only by toll bridge. The other option is to go way out east, past all the Rockaways, on NY 878, and then come back west.


J.P. Nasiatka sends me a two-head signal showing how traffic was told to slow prior to the birth of amber. It's the opposite of England, where red-green means prepare to race accelerate.


Likely on Shore Front Parkway at 84th St. per Declan Hughes, another rare two-head signal continues to defy the authorities who say that yellow lights save lives. I guess that since this is just a crosswalk, pedestrians can watch to make sure cars see the red light, but it really should be fixed. Then again, it's cool. Courtesy Doug Kerr.


Looking west along Rockaway Beach Blvd. WB and EB at its west end, a stub in Jacob Riis Park that looks like the road was meant to go to Breezy Point (it wasn't). Now that it's closed off west of the Beach Channel Drive interchange, it's falling into disrepair.

Courtesy Doug Kerr, these are probably all gone now.


These relics were on Seagirt Boulevard - well, the first was on Beach 35th Street at Seagirt and Beach Channel Dr. All but the last one (just before the NY 878 interchange) are courtesy Doug Kerr. The Rockaway street grid has Beach prefixes to prevent confusion with all the other grids in Queens. The next oceanfront town past the Rockaways is Atlantic Beach, which is also where NY 878, aka the Nassau Expressway, goes to die. In between here and the freeway Nassau Expressway (by JFK Airport), 878 is Rockaway Boulevard. Clearly, the two Nassau Expressways were meant to be linked as one long freeway, that would have all been I-878. In fact, I-878 would have continued eastward along Atlantic Beach and Long Beach, destroying the oceanfront community. Anyway, NY 878 is the Atlantic Beach Bridge, with cool cutout signs they don't make anymore. I bet the beach signs are even older though - this was back when black on white signs were made instead of white on green.

Beach Channel Drive
Marine Parkway Bridge
Cross Bay Bridge
Rockaway Freeway
To NY 878
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