By Adam Kramer
The expressway is the main artery into and out of the borough and has become famous throughout the years for congestion that borders on insanity. The backups slow traffic to a crawl and, in some instances, one might confuse the highway with a long-term parking at JFK Airport.
The Times-Ledger Newspapers have been chronicling the construction on the borough's major thoroughfares and the LIE is the biggest and baddest of them all. For commuters who use the highway during rush hour, it is like stepping into the ring against Mike Tyson.
I was the person assigned to spend the morning in a car fighting the agita-provoking commute into Manhattan. By the way, I hate driving.
Last Thursday morning, I struggled out of bed and headed to my car. I had to make the first leg of the journey, which was to get from my apartment on the Lower East Side of Manhattan to the end of Queens, just to turn around and head back.
The Queens' part of the LIE starts between Lake Success and Great Neck (Exit 33) and the Little Neck Parkway (Exit 32). I arrived at the spot at 8:30 a.m. and the traffic was moving at a good clip.
The $200 million construction project along the highway starts around Exit 32, but the westbound side of the LIE work project had no major effect on the traffic flow. I was moving along at a speed of 50 mph.
According to the State Department of Transportation, the rehabilitation of the highway includes the installation of new lights, a new road surface, a new drainage system and the removal of the bumps in the road.
The closure of Exit 31 did not change the westbound traffic flow, but on the eastbound side the cars had come to a halt. The closure of the exit has caused a stir in the Little Neck and Douglaston communities and was one of the battles between state Sen. Frank Padavan (R-Bellerose), who was re-elected, and his Democratic opponent, Rory Lancman, in the Nov. 7 election.
The construction backed up the eastbound lanes all the way to Kissena Boulevard, while I was moving at 55 mph. At Exit 29 there was no real sign of the upcoming traffic nightmare, but there was a sign above the highway informing commuters there were traffic delays between Exits 24 and 22.
A mile from Exit 27 – Utopia Parkway – I was driving at a clip of 65 mph and wondering when I would hit the gridlock scene that haunts all commuters.
Exit 25 – 60 mph and if this was the everyday commute, it would be a breeze to get into the city from the island. In between Exits 24 and 23 I started to slow down and it appeared the warning sign had been right. But I had gone 5.3 miles of the LIE in eight minutes, which was pretty good time.
At Main Street six miles of the LIE was behind me and it was 8:41 a.m. Exit 22 was coming up and the traffic was stop and go. I reached a top speed of 15 mph.
The Long Island Carpet Cleaners sponsors the cleanup of this part of the highway, and it seemed to be doing a good job except for two giant green trash bags sitting in the highway shoulder.
If I had to do the commute everyday, I would pack breakfast and have a thermos of coffee. My car radio was busted – because some rocket scientist decided to break off my antenna – making the journey even more wretched.
Traveling toward the Grand Central Parkway exit there was a great view of the Manhattan skyline towering over the remains of the 1963 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows Park and traffic inched along.
At 8:47 a.m. I was half a mile from 108th Street – 6.9 miles into the trip – and at a standstill. The Grand Central Parkway exit and entrance ramps above the LIE were moving, but the LIE was still in gridlock.
This area was the site of major pileups because the Van Wyck, the LIE and the Grand Central all converge, which caused a giant bottleneck.
Another construction project on the LIE started around 108th Street. The DOT was fixing the bridges and road surface two lanes at a time. The project was scheduled to last until 2003. The plan calls for construction to take place in four phases and work will be done on two lanes at a time. According to the DOT, the first phase was completed and the traffic was scheduled to shift lanes Dec. 21.
At Exit 20, Junction Boulevard, there was nothing out of the ordinary, but I was still stuck in traffic. In front of Lefrak City at Exit 19 the westbound LIE divides and the lanes to leave the highway were being used as part of the road.
At 8:54 a.m. and 8.8 miles into my journey to Manhattan I was coming up to the 69th Street and Grand Avenue exit. The road was still split, but the traffic was beginning to move and I reached 40 mph.
The LIE split ended a bit before the Maurice Avenue Exit, which marked 9.8 miles of the trip. The DOT was finishing up construction on the Maurice Avenue and Brooklyn Queens Expressway exits and the project no longer affected the traffic. At that point along the LIE Maspeth Federal Savings was responsible for cleaning the highway.
Driving onto the elevated part of the expressway, I entered into an area inundated with billboards. The were advertisements for Mac Computers, Chevy, TDK, a picture of a naked woman covered in small ribbons advertising Beau Brummel, Kaspar, Banana Republic, Gap, DKNY and a sign saying “made you look” that was advertising a $36,000 Mercedes.
At 11.5 miles, I came to Exits 15 and 16 – my watch read 8:59 a.m. – and I pushed the car to 50 mph heading towards the Midtown Tunnel.
I just got Easy Pass so there was no waiting in the cash-only lane. At 9:01 a.m. and 12.8 miles along on the voyage, I was moving at 15 miles an hour, but traffic at the cash lane was at a halt.
I waited behind a Mercedes with the license plate “Red chip” and went through the tollbooth at 9:04 a.m. and logged 13.2 miles of the trip. In the tunnel I was pushing the speed limit at 12 mph.
As I broke through the tunnel, the first thing I saw was an ad for British Airways. At 9:08 a.m., I was headed toward downtown Manhattan. Turning onto Second Avenue at 9:10 a.m. the ride covered 14.5 miles and took 40 minutes – a trip that in a Utopian world should take only between 15 and 20 minutes without traffic.
If I worked at the diner on the corner and lived at the Queens/Nassau border, I would have been late for my 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. shift.
