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Harden Parkway in Salinas, California

The term parkway has several distinct principal meanings and numerous synonyms around the world, for either a type of landscaped area or a type of road.

Type of landscaped area

• The central area, often landscaped, which separates opposing lanes of traffic on divided streets, roads, and limited-access highways.^[1] Also known as a median (North American English), central reservation (British English), median strip (North American, New Zealand, and Australian English), or central nature strip (Australian English).

Types of a road

• A divided limited-access road with grade separated interchanges. Also known as an expressway, freeway, and interstate highway (North American English); dual carriageway, motorway, and highway (British English); Autobahn (Germany, Austria, Switzerland), and Autostrada (Italy, Poland, Romania, Lithuania, Albania, Belgium, Egypt, Lebanon, and Israel).
• A broad landscaped highway thoroughfare,^[1] or a roadway in a park or a landscaped thoroughfare connecting parks from which trucks and other heavy vehicles are excluded.^[1]

Road term use[link]

History in North America[link]

Brooklyn's Eastern Parkway, the world's first parkway according to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation

The Clara Barton Parkway in Maryland

Scenic roads[link]

Over the years, many different types of roads have been labeled parkways.

The first parkways in the United States were developed during the late 19th Century by landscape architects Frederick Law Olmsted and Beatrix Farrand as roads segregated for pedestrians, bicyclists, equestrians, and horse carriages, such as the Eastern Parkway, which is credited as the world's first parkway^[2], and Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. The terminology "parkway" to define this type of road was coined by Calvert Vaux and Frederick Law Olmsted in their proposal to link city and suburban parks with "pleasure roads." Newer roads such as the Bidwell and Lincoln Parkways in Buffalo, New York were designed for automobiles and are broad and divided by large landscaped central medians. Parkways can be the approach to large urban parks, such as the Mystic Valley Parkway to Boston Common in Boston. Some separated express lanes from local lanes, though this was not always the case.

During the early 20th century, the meaning of the word was expanded to include limited-access highways designed for recreational driving of automobiles, with landscaping. These parkways including the Vanderbilt Motor Parkway originally provided scenic routes without very slow or commercial vehicles, at grade intersections, or pedestrian traffic. Their success led to more development however, expanding a city's boundaries, eventually limiting their recreational driving use. The Arroyo Seco Parkway between Downtown Los Angeles and Pasadena, California is an example of lost pastoral aesthetics. It and others have become major commuting routes, while retaining the name parkway.

Early high speed roads[link]

In New York City construction on the Long Island Motor Parkway (Vanderbilt Parkway) began in 1906 and planning for the Bronx River Parkway in 1907. In the 1920s, the New York City region's parkway system grew under the direction of Robert Moses, the president of the New York State Council of Parks and Long Island State Park Commission, who used parkways to create and access state parks, especially for city dwellers. As Commissioner of New York City Parks under Mayor LaGuardia, he extended the parkways to the heart of the city, creating and linking its parks to the greater metropolitan systems. Most of the New York metropolitan parkways were designed by Gilmore Clark. The Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, opening in the 1930s, runs through forests with each bridge designed uniquely to enhance the scenery. Another example is the Sprain Brook Parkway from The Bronx to become the Taconic State Parkway to upstate Albany, New York. Landscape architect George Kessler designed extensive parkway systems for Kansas City, Missouri; Memphis, Tennessee; Indianapolis; and other cities at the beginning of the 20th century.

The Natchez Trace Parkway.

.

New Deal roads[link]

In the 1930s, as part of the New Deal the U.S. federal government constructed national parkways designed for recreational driving and to commemorate historic trails and routes. These divided four-lane parkways have lower speed limits and are maintained by the National Park Service. An example is the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built Blue Ridge Parkway in the Appalachian Mountains of North Carolina and Virginia. Others are: Skyline Drive in Virginia; the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi, Alabama, and Tennessee; and the Colonial Parkway in eastern Virginia's Historic Triangle area. [1]. The George Washington Memorial Parkway and the Clara Barton Parkway, running along the Potomac River near Washington, D.C., were also constructed during this era.

Post-war parkways[link]

In Kentucky the term "parkway" designates a controlled-access highway in the Kentucky Parkway system, with nine built in the 1960s and 1970s. They were toll roads until the construction bonds were repaid, now being freeways since 2006.

The Arroyo Seco Parkway from Pasadena to Los Angeles, built in 1940, is the first segment of the vast Southern California freeway system. It became part of State Route 110 route and renamed the Pasadena Freeway. A 2010 restoration of the freeway brought the Arroyo Seco Parkway designation back.

Sign informing truckers it is illegal to use a Parkway in New York City.

In the New York metropolitan area contemporary parkways are predominantly controlled-access highways restricted to non-commercial traffic, excluding trucks and tractor-trailers. Some have low overpasses that also exclude buses. The Vanderbilt Parkway, an exception in western Suffolk County, is a surviving remnant of the Long Island Motor Parkway that became a surface street, no longer with controlled-access or non-commercial vehicle restrictions.

In New Jersey, the Garden State Parkway, connecting the urban Northeast U.S. with the rural Atlantic Ocean shoreline and Atlantic City, is restricted to buses and non-commercial traffic north of the Route 18 interchange but is one of the busiest toll roads in the country.^[3]

In the Pittsburgh region, two of the major interstates are referred to informally as Parkways. The Parkway East — I-376, formally the Penn-Lincoln Parkway, connects Downtown Pittsburgh to Monroeville, Pennsylvania. The Parkway West — I-376] links Downtown to Pittsburgh International Airport. The Parkway North — I-279 connects Downtown to Franklin Park, Pennsylvania.

In Minneapolis, the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway system has 50 miles (80 km) of streets designated as parkways. These are not freeways, having a slow 25-mile per hour speed limit, pedestrian crossings, and stop signs.^[4][5]

Canadian "Parkways"[link]

"Parkway" is used in the names of many Canadian roads, many of which are not scenic or landscaped in any form:

United Kingdom[link]

The road transport of Peterborough, a city in the United Kingdom has a system of designated Parkways. The planned city of Milton Keynes has a system of linear parks with landscaped Parkways. British park-and-ride railway stations have the suffix Parkway, although the etymology is from the original U.S. meaning, with the Bristol Parkway railway station named after the adjacent M32 motorway originally known as the Parkway when a rural route into the city.

Australia[link]

The planned city of Canberra in Australia uses the suffix Parkway for only a few of its freeway grade roadways. Only the Tuggeranong Parkway has been constructed to date, with the John Dedman Parkway project renamed the Gungahlin Drive Extension, and the Majura Parkway in planning stage, with no set construction date due to lack of Federal Funding.

See also[link]

• Central reservation
• Green belt
• Road verge
• National Scenic Byway

References[link]

1. ^ ^{a b c} "parkway." Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster, 2002. http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com (14 Apr. 2007).
2. ^ http://www.nycgovparks.org/about/history/historical-signs/listings?id=196
3. ^ "TITLE 16. DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION - CHAPTER 32. TRUCK ACCESS". New Jersey Department of Transportation. http://www.state.nj.us/transportation/about/rules/pdf/chapter32truckaccess.pdf. Retrieved August 13, 2010. 
4. ^ "Information Center: About the Grand Rounds". http://www.minneapolisparks.org/grandrounds/inf_about.htm. Retrieved 2007-12-18. 
5. ^ "Second Ward, Minneapolis: Traffic Calming Event". http://secondward.blogspot.com/2007/01/traffic-calming-event.html. Retrieved 2007-12-18. 

External links[link]

• NPS: Blue Ridge Parkway website
• NPS: Natchez Trace Parkway website
• Natchez Trace Compact
• Long Island Motor Parkway
• Bronx River Parkway
• Merritt Parkway
• The Straight Dope "Why do we drive on the parkway and park on the driveway?"
• NPS Colonial Parkway webpage