page_title: Meadowbrook State Parkway
section_title: Recent changes
hierarchical_section_title: Meadowbrook State Parkway / History / Recent changes
caption_attribution_description: English: The Meadowbrook State Parkway approaching exit&#160;M7 in Nassau County, New York
context_page_description: The Meadowbrook State Parkway is a 12.52-mile parkway in Nassau County, New York, in the United States. Its southern terminus is at a full cloverleaf interchange with the Bay and Ocean parkways in Jones Beach State Park. The parkway heads north, crossing South Oyster Bay and intersecting Loop Parkway before crossing onto the mainland and connecting to the Southern State Parkway in North Merrick. It continues north to the village of Carle Place, where the Meadowbrook Parkway ends at exit 31A of the Northern State Parkway. The Meadowbrook Parkway is designated New York State Route 908E, an unsigned reference route. Most of the road is limited to non-commercial traffic, like most parkways in the state of New York; however, the portion south of Merrick Road is open to commercial traffic.
  The Meadowbrook State Parkway was first envisioned in 1924 as part of the Long Island State Park Commission and Robert Moses's system to connect several parks in Nassau and Suffolk counties. One park included in the proposal was Jones Beach State Park, which opened along with the Ocean Parkway in 1929.
context_section_description: In 1947, the LISPC approved $37,000 (1947 USD) to construct a stone ornate gasoline station along the Meadowbrook in Jones Beach State Park. The gas station, one of eight constructed by Robert Moses throughout Long Island, would serve drivers, when there were fewer stations throughout the area. After 1975, NYSDOT, who took control of the parkways from the LISPC, started demolishing some of the stations, including the Meadowbrook, which ended up being one of the first buildings to go. The stations, which were once useful, would fork from the left lane into the median. However, according to NYSDOT, with the change in traffic patterns, the entrances to these stations became dangerous. By 1997, over two decades after demolition, the station site became a problematic place for people parking and walking up the Meadowbrook and Loop to fish on the bridges. According to the New York State Police, the site is legal for use as a repair stop or for emergencies. However, not for use of dropping people off for fishing, which is also illegal to fish from atop the bridge, except it is around and under the bridges.
  In August 1998, signs were installed along the Meadowbrook State Parkway dedicating the road in honor of State Senator Norman J. Levy, who died in February 1998 after brain surgery. Levy had served on the State Senate Transportation Committee since 1982 and sponsored the first seat belt law in the United States, and had also been part of the negotiations that helped work resume on the Meadowbrook–Northern State interchange. The new signs were unveiled in a ceremony in the median of the parkway just south of Merrick Road. Dignitaries at the honoring ceremony included then-Governor George Pataki, Senator Charles Fuschillo and Levy's widow, Joy Levy. Signs were erected at both ends of the Meadowbrook Parkway and at a point near the Babylon Turnpike interchange.
  The Long Island Transportation Plan 2000, a study of how to handle Long Island traffic issues in 2020, was started in 1997 by engineers from NYSDOT. The preferred alternative in the study would widen several parkways on the island, inserting high-occupancy vehicle lanes (HOV lanes) for buses and carpools. The Meadowbrook would receive a new HOV lane between the Southern and Northern state parkways, while everything south of the Southern State Parkway would remain the same. The Northern State Parkway would get lanes from the Long Island Expressway to the Meadowbrook, and the Southern State would get lanes from the Meadowbrook to the Sunrise Highway.
  In October 2008, Nassau County Legislator David Denenberg demonstrated with ten civic leaders in front of the NYSDOT building in East Meadow about the slow progress of construction on the NY 102 (Front Street) overpass. Construction was causing rush hour traffic to back up for miles near the Hempstead Turnpike (NY 24) exit, and evidence showed no work had been done for several months. After residents and commuters started demanding answers, NYSDOT stated that a project that began as just basic bridge repair had become a larger-scale project that required a redesign due to the fact that the bridge had more damage than initially realized.
caption: Signage denoting the State Senator Norman J. Levy Memorial Parkway designation just south of exit M7E on the northbound Meadowbrook
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