Why the Low Bridges on Long Island Parkways?

Drivers cannot help but notice the low bridges on Long Island parkways. Earlier this week, a truck driver died in an accident with a bridge. In 2014, New York State Department of Transportation recorded 64 bridge strikes on Long Island, a 16 percent increase over the previous year. The bridges are beautiful, but deadly. And they came about for an ugly reason.

This situation begs a question: why the low bridges on the parkways and what can be done about them?

Low Bridges on Long Island Parkways: Beautiful, Lethal and Borne of Racism

One man, Robert Moses, is responsible for the construction the parkways and their bridges. Known as the Master Builder, and subject of Robert Caro’s magnificent and award winning biography, The Power Broker (a must read for New Yorkers who want to understand the development of our infrastructure and politics), Moses served as the Commissioner of Parks and Transportation for New York State. In addition to holding this State wide office, Moses wielded serious clout in New York City, where he was also head of the Parks and Transportation Departments as well as the head of City Planning. Plus, he ran the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority. Due to the numerous positions he held, Robert Moses was both the man coming up with the projects and the man providing the oversight to approve them.

In the early part of the 20^th Century, Moses had a vision of parks and roadways and he amassed the political power and financing to bring his vision to life. He developed the concept for and built Jones Beach, Sunken Meadow, Hecksher Park, Belmont Lake Park and other state parks on Long Island. And he built roadways to bring New York City residents out to visit his parks. Those roads are the parkways – thus the origin of the term: a way to get to the park.

But Moses did not build the parks and parkways for everyone. He wanted to keep out the poor and people of color. Moses only wanted people who could own a car to drive on his parkways and visit his parks. He banned trucks and buses from his parkways (yes, he thought of them as his roadways). However, it was not enough to ban buses on his parkways, to enforce his decree, he built bridges too low for buses to pass under. Eighty years later, we still suffer the consequences of his decision.

What Can Be Done about the Low Bridges on Long Island Parkways?

The state has put up signs approaching the bridges and on entrance ramps, but that has not stopped trucks crashing into the bridges.

One solution is to replace the bridges, but the cost, time and interruption of that operation would be dramatic. There have been some bridges replaced such as the Northern State Parkway overpass on Route 110 in Melville.

We will see if this latest innovation can reduce the number of accidents.

Lasting Impact on Long Island by Moses

Moses remains controversial because he did so much, good and bad, for the region. He had the idea to build Jones Beach, yet he also bitterly opposed mass transit and help foment urban sprawl. He designed the two Worlds Fairs in Queens, but also built the Cross Bronx Expressway and Brooklyn Queens Expressway that tore neighborhoods apart. Robert Caro documented that Moses lowered the temperature in an East Harlem pool to discourage African Americans from swimming there because he believed they did not like cold water.

He used the government power of eminent domain to take property for poor and middle class property owners, often paying pennies on the dollar for the property. But he never challenged the wealthy landowners and political powers. Here are two examples of the impact of that approach on Long Island:

• If you travel eastbound on the Northern State Parkway from New York City, just after Willis Avenue, the road makes a right hand turn and goes south for three miles before turning back east and heading in a northeasterly direction. Why? The road was intended to go straight, but Moses cut a deal with the landowners in Old Westbury. The deal added millions of dollars in public cost to go around their land.
• In building the Long Island expressway, he went out of his way to appease those same landowners, and he put no exits between Glen Cove Road and Jericho Turnpike, sinking the road below grade. Again, this was only done in this one area. Millions of dollars of tax dollars were spent to appease favored landowners.

In his quest to carry out his vision and to build his projects, Moses assumed great power in New York, making Mayors, Governors and even the President of the United States back down when they  tried to limit his authority.

The lesson: we need to leaders, visionaries and managers who can build the public works that we require, but they cannot proceed unchecked. As a historian noted long ago, “Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”

I hope that this information proves interesting to you and explains an odd Long Island phenomenon: the low bridges over Long island Parkways.

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Carol L. Schlitt
The Schlitt Law FirmNew York Personal Injury Attorney
1-800-660-1466
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