Atlantic Avenue is the sole east–west through truck route across Brooklyn,[3] mostly serving the purpose of the canceled Bushwick Expressway (Interstate 78) and the Brooklyn portion of the Cross Brooklyn Expressway (New York State Route 878, internally known as Interstate 878). The street connects to the existing segment of NY878 via Conduit Boulevard, which splits from Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn and connects to NY878 in Queens.
Route description
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The face of Atlantic Avenue east of Flatbush Avenue, the site designated for the Brooklyn Atlantic Yards, is defined by the LIRR tracks that run beneath (from Flatbush Avenue to Bedford Avenue), above (from Bedford Avenue to Dewey Place), and beneath again in East New York until Lefferts Boulevard in Queens.
The Atlantic Avenue Railroad (now LIRR) originally ran along Atlantic Avenue as streetcars pulled by horses. With electrification, other traffic was eliminated from the roadway and Atlantic Avenue became discontinuous. When railway sections west of Jamaica station were put underground in the early 1940s, that portion of Atlantic Avenue became continuous again. Northeast of Bedford Avenue, the railway is still at (or above) ground level.
Just east of the Van Wyck Expressway, the roadway narrows to one lane and carries eastbound traffic only to 95th Avenue (westbound traffic diverges to 94th Avenue past this point). The one-block section between the Van Wyck Expressway and 95th Avenue opened in July 2020 as part of the $17 million Gateway Park project.[5][6] Atlantic Avenue from the Brooklyn Docks to Gateway Park at Van Wyck Expressway is 10.3 miles long, with 7.4 miles in Brooklyn, making it one of Brooklyn's longest streets.[1]
Pre-electrification maps from 1909[7] and 1910[8][9] show Atlantic Avenue, at that time, continued to the city line.
Other iterations of this road
Short roadways still named Atlantic Avenue exist further east adjacent to the LIRR Main Line within Nassau County.
A stretch of road still named Atlantic Avenue, just under one mile long, runs just south of the Main Line from the Bellerose station to the Floral Park station.[10]
Just north of the Merillon Avenue train station in Garden City is another short roadway called Atlantic Avenue. Other short segments of roadway called Atlantic Avenue exist adjacent to the Main Line at Carle Place in Nassau County, and even as far east as the approach to the Nassau-Suffolk County line, just beyond the Farmingdale LIRR station.