County Route 46 (Suffolk County, New York)

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County Route 46 marker

County Route 46
William Floyd Parkway
290x172px
Map of Suffolk County on Long Island with CR 46 highlighted in red
Route information
Maintained by SCDPW
Length: 15.4 mi[2] (24.8 km)
Existed: March 30, 1931[1] – present
Major junctions
South end: CR 75 in Smith Point Park
  CR 80 in Shirley
NY 27 in Shirley
I-495 in Yaphank
NY 25 in Ridge
North end: NY 25A in East Shoreham
Highway system
← CR 45 CR 47 →

County Route 46 (CR 46) is a major county road in eastern Suffolk County, New York, in the United States. It runs north and south from CR 75 in Smith Point County Park (part of the Fire Island National Seashore) to New York State Route 25A (NY 25A) near the border of Shoreham and Wading River. The road is known as William Floyd Parkway along its entire length, and is named after William Floyd, a Long Island native and a signer of the United States Declaration of Independence. Depsite its "parkway" designation, the road is open to commercial vehicles.

Route description

File:William Floyd bascule lift bridge.jpg
The bridge over the Great South Bay in Smith Point County Park

CR 46 begins at a traffic circle with CR 75 in Smith Point County Park within the town of Brookhaven. A short distance north of the traffic circle, CR 46, known as William Floyd Parkway, crosses past a large parking lot for Smith Point as well as several tennis courts and a basketball court. The route then proceeds to cross the Great South Bay on a bascule lift bridge and soon onto mainland Long Island. After crossing onto the mainland, CR 46 becomes a divided four-lane boulevard with a wide grass median past several bayside residential communities. Bending north through several residential neighborhoods of Brookhaven, the route becomes a limited access parkway through area, crossing into the community of Shirley near Coraci Boulevard.[3]

CR 46 crosses northeast through Shirley, passing a large commercial strip through the village, passing an at-grade interchange with Stuart Road and Stuart Drive in Shirley. Just north of Tudor Road, the route crosses past several intersections with circles in the center of Shirley, soon crossing the Long Island Rail Road Babylon Branch at-grade next to the Mastic-Shirley station. Expanding to eight lanes, CR 46 crosses a junction with the Montauk Highway (CR 80). The parkway condenses to six lanes for a short distance northwest of the junction before reaching a cloverleaf interchange with NY 27 (the Sunrise Highway) in Shirley. After the Sunrise Highway, CR 46 crosses north as a four-lane boulevard through Brookhaven.[3]

Passing Brookhaven Airport, CR 46 passes a lighted interchange with the airport access road just south of a campus for Dowling College. A distance north, the route crosses an intersection with Moriches–Middle Island Road, crossing over a lone railroad track near an interchange for Ramsey Road. Just north of Ramsey Road, CR 46 enters a large cloverleaf with exit 68 of the Long Island Expressway (I-495). After the interchange, William Floyd Parkway becomes a four-lane boulevard through a wooded section of Brookhaven, soon reaching the Yaphank Woods Road development. Crossing a diamond interchange with Longwood Road, the parkway bends northeast through a mix of wooded and residential sections. Just as CR 46 crosses the Peconic River, the route bends northward and enters a cloverleaf interchange with NY 25 (Middle Country Road).[3]

File:William Floyd at NY 25A.jpg
William Floyd Parkway at the junction with NY 25A in East Shoreham

Now in the Ridge section of Brookhaven, the parkway becomes residential, passing multiple developments and an entrance to Brookhaven State Park near the junction with Whiskey Road. A large center median divides the lanes as the route crosses along the western extents of Brookhaven State Park, crossing into East Shoreham near the border with Wading River. Upon leaving the park, CR 46 passes a United States Army Reserve Center and enters an interchange with NY 25A. This interchange marks the northern terminus of CR 46 and William Floyd Parkway.[3]

History

Original ambitions

William Floyd Parkway originally was going to include segments of two different formerly proposed state parkways: the Smith Point Spur and the Wildwood Spur.

  • The Smith Point Spur was to begin at the traffic circle in Smith Point County Park, and run as far north as what was then the never-built Southern State Parkway extension,[4] but instead became Sunrise Highway. The traffic circle was originally intended for an extension of Ocean Parkway, but instead remains for CR 75 to this day.
  • The Wildwood Spur was intended to begin at the never-built North Fork extension of the Northern State Parkway,[5] cross over NY 25A, then curve eastbound, winding through the hills of Shoreham and Wading River, until finally reaching Wildwood State Park.

The road as built

The section that was originally supposed to be a Smith Point Parkway Spur was a two lane highway with flanking frontage roads until the mid-1970s when this section was widened. Near the vicinity of the Montauk Line of the Long Island Rail Road, a series of intersections known as "The Circles" were built on the south side of the tracks. Some sections of these roads were turned over to developers. Today, the only segment that is two lanes wide is the Smith Point Bridge.

Camp Upton Road was originally part of CR 46, until NY 27 (Sunrise Highway) was extended through the area in 1957, and an interchange was built for a realigned section. North of Sunrise Highway, the road runs alongside Brookhaven Airport.

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CR 46A was the original designation for the alignment along the west side of Brookhaven National Laboratory between Yaphank–Moriches Road and south of the unnumbered interchange with NY 25. It was eventually integrated into CR 46 while the old CR 46 (Upton Road) was abandoned to both the lab and private developers. The interchange with the Long Island Expressway was built at the geographic center of Long Island. Few people know for certain which part of it is the center, but some[who?] believe it is located on the northeast quadrant of the interchange. The cloverleaf intersection features collector-distributor roads on the Long Island Expressway, an upgrade from the typical cloverleaf interchange that was originally designed for the site.[6] Far off the northwest corner of this interchange is the site of the former Suffolk Meadows horse racing track, which today stands as the site of some housing developments.

The median widens at the intersection of Longwood Road (former CR 24) and the entrance to Brookhaven Labs. This occurs to allow space for what was planned to be a diamond interchange. Other formerly proposed interchanges in the area include an extension of CR 101, and the unbuilt CR 102.

North of the unnumbered interchange with NY 25 in Ridge, there was to be another interchange with CR 111. From there, the median widened once again, as William Floyd Parkway intersects with the eastern terminus of Whiskey Road and the west side of Brookhaven State Park, which was formerly part of Brookhaven Labs until the mid-1970s. North of the Whiskey Road intersection, there are no other roads or interchanges until the terminus at NY 25A. This northernmost section of highway is quite wide, with U-turn ramps available for turnarounds. The intersection at NY 25A, which was originally proposed to be an interchange, now features channelized turns and two separate traffic light controls due to the extremely wide median of CR 46.

Bridge to Connecticut

Besides the proposed spur to Wildwood State Park, there was intended to be an extension to a new bridge across Long Island Sound to either New Haven or East Haven, Connecticut, between the 1950s and 1970s. Upon completion of the bridge, CR 46 would be transferred to the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) in exchange for NY 25A. NYSDOT would then upgrade the roadway to Interstate Highway standards, allowing Interstate 91 (I-91) to continue southward from New Haven, its current southern terminus, to usurp CR 46.

After plans for this bridge failed in the 1970s, the option of a connection to a proposed ferry port between Wading River and the New Haven area was suggested, but this proposal also collapsed.[7]

Major intersections

Location mi[2] km Destinations Notes
Smith Point County Park 0.00 0.00 CR 75 east Traffic circle; west end of CR 75
Narrow Bay 0.20–
0.50		 0.32–
0.80		 Smith Point Bridge
Shirley 4.80 7.72 CR 80 (Montauk Highway) – Patchogue, Moriches
5.00 8.05 NY 27 / CR 56 west (Victory Avenue) – New York, Montauk Exit 58 on NY 27; east end of CR 56
Yaphank 8.00 12.87 I-495 (Long Island Expressway) – New York, Riverhead Exit 68 on I-495
Upton 9.60 15.45 Longwood Road west (CR 24) / Princeton Avenue east – Brookhaven Lab East end of CR 24
Ridge 12.00 19.31 NY 25 (Middle Country Road) – New York, Riverhead, Calverton Cemetery Cloverleaf interchange
East Shoreham 15.40 24.78 NY 25A (North Country Road) – Port Jefferson, Wading River
1.000 mi = 1.609 km; 1.000 km = 0.621 mi

See also

References

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External links

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