page_title: Interstate 495 (New York)
section_title: Across Manhattan
hierarchical_section_title: Interstate 495 (New York) / Unbuilt expansions / Extensions of the expressway / Across Manhattan
caption_attribution_description: English: NY 9A south at 42nd St. Taken March 27, 2001 by User:SPUI.
context_page_description: Interstate 495, commonly known as the Long Island Expressway, is an auxiliary Interstate Highway in the U.S. state of New York. It is jointly maintained by the New York State Department of Transportation, the New York City Department of Transportation, MTA Bridges and Tunnels, and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.
  Spanning approximately 71 miles along a west–east axis, I-495 traverses Long Island from the western portal of the Queens–Midtown Tunnel in the New York City borough of Manhattan to CR 58 in Riverhead in the east. I-495 intersects with I-295 in Bayside, Queens, through which it connects with I-95. A roughly 5-mile gap in official Interstate designation exists within Queens, between I-278 in Long Island City and I-678 in Corona; this section of highway is officially designated as New York State Route 495, despite being signed as an Interstate Highway throughout.
  The Long Island Expressway designation, despite being commonly applied to I-495 in full, technically refers to the stretch of highway between Nassau and Suffolk counties.
context_section_description: Plans for I-495 called for it to extend across Manhattan on the Mid-Manhattan Expressway to the Lincoln Tunnel, which it would follow into New Jersey and connect to I-95 in Secaucus. The I-495 designation was assigned to the New Jersey approach to the tunnel in anticipation of the Mid-Manhattan Expressway being completed. However, the project was cancelled and the Mid-Manhattan Expressway was officially removed from I-495 on January 1, 1970. The New Jersey stretch of I-495 became New Jersey Route 495 in 1979.
  Manhattan Borough President Samuel Levy first proposed the Mid-Manhattan Expressway connector in 1936. The plan called for an expressway link crossing midtown Manhattan near 34th Street, then, as now, a heavily traveled crosstown surface street. The original idea was a pair of two-laned tunnels, the Mid-Manhattan Expressway or M.M.E. (sometimes called the Mid-Manhattan Elevated Expressway) connecting the West Side Highway on Hudson River and the Franklin D. Roosevelt East River Drive on the East River. By 1949, Robert Moses, New York City Parks Commissioner and Arterial Coordinator, proposed a six-lane elevated expressway along 30th Street. The expressway was to have two exits, to connect to the West Side Highway and the Lincoln Tunnel on the west side of Manhattan, and also to the Queens–Midtown Tunnel and FDR Drive on the east side of the island. It would be constructed within a 100-foot (30 m)-wide right-of-way immediately south of 30th Street. The viaduct would require substantial demolition of high-rise buildings within Midtown Manhattan. To cover the costs of construction, Moses suggested charging tolls on the new roadway, which was estimated to cost $26 million to construct plus another $23 million for the land needed for the project.
  A later proposal had the roadway situated ten stories above valuable commercial real estate.  Air rights above the expressway would be sold and new high-rise buildings would be constructed above the expressway; buildings would be constructed below the viaduct as well. One unusual variation involved running the roadway through the sixth and seventh floors of the Empire State Building. In 1963, plans for the expressway were finalized, and it received the I-495 designation. Beginning from its elevated connections to 12th Avenue (NY 9A) or the West Side Elevated Highway, the Mid-Manhattan Expressway would mostly follow 30th Street east of Ninth Avenue. The expressway would travel east as a six-lane elevated route, ten stories above the city streets to allow for commercial development both above and below the skyway deck. At Second Avenue, it would swing north for connections with the FDR Drive. Between First and Second Avenues, ramps would be constructed to provide access to the Queens–Midtown Tunnel.
  In December 1965, Moses canceled his plans for the Mid-Manhattan Expressway due to opposition from the city government, which wanted to build a crosstown tunnel instead. The Mid-Manhattan Expressway project was ultimately canceled and the I-495 designation removed from the expressway on January 1, 1970. In 1971, New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller removed state plans for the Mid-Manhattan Expressway, along with about a dozen other highway plans including I-78 through New York City, of which another crosstown highway known as the Lower Manhattan Expressway (LOMEX) was part.
caption: Signage for the Lincoln Tunnel on 12th Avenue (NY 9A). This is one of the few remaining signs of the former I-495 to New Jersey.
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