Editing Queens (section)

===Roads===
====Highways====
[[File:2024-06-19 12 05 10 View south along Interstate 678 (Van Wyck Expressway) from the overpass for Atlantic Avenue in Queens, New York City, New York.jpg|thumb|upright=1|[[Air Train JFK]] path above the [[Van Wyck Expressway]]]]
Queens is traversed by three trunk east–west highways. The [[Long Island Expressway]] ([[Interstate 495 (New York)|Interstate 495]]) runs from the [[Queens Midtown Tunnel]] on the west through the borough to Nassau County on the east. The [[Grand Central Parkway]], whose western terminus is the [[Triborough Bridge]], extends east to the Queens/Nassau border, where the roadway continues as the [[Northern State Parkway]]. The [[Belt Parkway]] begins at the [[Gowanus Expressway]] in Brooklyn, and extends east into Queens, past [[Aqueduct Racetrack]] and JFK Airport. On its eastern end at the Queens/Nassau border, it splits into the [[Southern State Parkway]] which continues east, and the [[Cross Island Parkway]] which turns north.<ref name="Google-Maps-Queens" />

There are also several major north–south highways in Queens, including the [[Brooklyn-Queens Expressway]] ([[Interstate 278]]), the [[Van Wyck Expressway]] ([[Interstate 678]]), the [[Clearview Expressway]] ([[Interstate 295 (New York)|Interstate 295]]), and the Cross Island Parkway.<ref name="Google-Maps-Queens" />

Queens has six state highways that run west–east largely on surface roads. From north to south, they are [[New York State Route 25A]] (Northern Boulevard), [[New York State Route 25B]] (Hillside Avenue), [[New York State Route 25]] ([[Queens Boulevard]], Hillside Avenue, and Braddock Avenue), [[New York State Route 24]] (Hempstead Avenue), and [[New York State Route 27]] ([[Conduit Avenue]]). The only state highway that primarily uses an expressway is [[New York State Route 878]], which uses the Nassau Expressway in southern Queens.<ref name="Google-Maps-Queens" />

====Streets====
[[File:Parsons jewel.jpg|thumb|upright=1|Cross-street signs for a single-named boulevard and a co-named avenue in Queens]]
The streets of Queens are laid out in a semi-[[grid plan|grid]] system, with a numerical system of [[street name]]s (similar to Manhattan and the Bronx). Nearly all roadways oriented north–south are "Streets", while east–west roadways are "Avenues", beginning with the number 1 in the west for Streets and the north for Avenues. In some parts of the borough, several consecutive streets may share numbers (for instance, 72nd Street followed by 72nd Place and 72nd Lane, or 52nd Avenue followed by 52nd Road, 52nd Drive, and 52nd Court), often confusing non-residents.<ref name="NYTs 2000 Dec 15" /> Also, incongruous alignments of street grids, unusual street paths due to geography, or other circumstances often lead to the skipping of numbers (for instance, on Ditmars Boulevard, 70th Street is followed by Hazen Street which is followed by 49th Street). Numbered roads tend to be residential, although numbered commercial streets are not rare. A fair number of streets that were country roads in the 18th and 19th centuries (especially major thoroughfares such as [[New York State Route 25A|Northern Boulevard]], [[Queens Boulevard]], [[Hillside Avenue (Queens)|Hillside Avenue]], and [[Jamaica Avenue (Queens)|Jamaica Avenue]]) carry names rather than numbers, typically though not uniformly called "Boulevards" or "Parkways".

Queens [[house numbering]] was designed to provide convenience in locating the address itself; the first half of a number in a Queens address refers to the nearest cross street, the second half refers to the house or lot number from where the street begins from that cross street, followed by the name of the street itself. For example, to find an address in Queens, 14-01 120th Street, one could ascertain from the address structure itself that the listed address is at the intersection of 14th Avenue and 120th Street and that the address must be closest to 14th Avenue rather than 15th Avenue, as it is the first lot on the block. This pattern does not stop when a street is named, assuming that there is an existing numbered cross-street. For example, [[Queens College]] is situated at 65–30 Kissena Boulevard, and is so named because the cross-street closest to the entrance is 65th Avenue.<ref name="NYTs 2000 Dec 15" />

Many of the village street grids of Queens had only worded names, some were numbered according to local numbering schemes, and some had a mix of words and numbers. In the early 1920s, a "Philadelphia Plan" was instituted to overlay one numbered system upon the whole borough. The Topographical Bureau, Borough of Queens, worked out the details. Subway stations were only partly renamed, and some, including those along the [[IRT Flushing Line]] ({{NYCS trains|Flushing}}), now share dual names after the original street names.<ref name="Powell 1928 Feb" /> In 2012, some numbered streets in the [[Douglaston Hill Historic District]] were renamed to their original names, with 43rd Avenue becoming Pine Street.<ref name="NYTs 2012 Mar 26" />

The Rockaway Peninsula does not follow the same system as the rest of the borough and has its own numbering system. Streets are numbered in ascending order heading west from near the Nassau County border, and are prefixed with the word "Beach". Streets at the easternmost end, however, are nearly all named. [[Bayswater, Queens|Bayswater]], which is on Jamaica Bay, has its numbered streets prefixed with the word "Bay" rather than "Beach". Another deviation from the norm is [[Broad Channel, Queens|Broad Channel]]; it maintains the north–south numbering progression but uses only the suffix "Road", as well as the prefixes "West" and "East", depending on location relative to [[Cross Bay Boulevard (Queens)|Cross Bay Boulevard]], the neighborhood's major through street. Broad Channel's streets were a continuation of the mainland Queens grid in the 1950s; formerly the highest-numbered avenue in Queens was 208th Avenue rather than today's 165th Avenue in Howard Beach & Hamilton Beach. The other exception is the neighborhood of Ridgewood, which for the most part shares a grid and [[house numbering]] system with the Brooklyn neighborhood of [[Bushwick, Brooklyn|Bushwick]]. The grid runs east–west from the LIRR [[Bay Ridge Branch]] [[right-of-way (transportation)|right-of-way]] to Flushing Avenue; and north–south from Forest Avenue in Ridgewood to Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn before adjusting to meet up with the [[Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn|Bedford-Stuyvesant]] grid at Broadway. All streets on the grid have names.

====Bridges and tunnels====
{{see also|List of bridges and tunnels in New York City}}
[[File:Hell Gate and Triborough Bridges New York City Queens.jpg|thumb|upright=1|The [[Triborough Bridge]] connects Queens with [[Manhattan]] and [[The Bronx]].]]
Queens is connected to the Bronx by the [[Bronx–Whitestone Bridge]], the [[Throgs Neck Bridge]], the [[Triborough Bridge]] (also known as the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge), and the [[Hell Gate Bridge]]. Queens is connected to Manhattan Island by the Triborough Bridge, the [[Queensboro Bridge]], and the [[Queens–Midtown Tunnel]], as well as to [[Roosevelt Island]] by the [[Roosevelt Island Bridge]].

While most of the Queens/Brooklyn border is on land, the [[Kosciuszko Bridge]] crosses the [[Newtown Creek]] connecting [[Maspeth, Queens|Maspeth]] to [[Greenpoint, Brooklyn]]. The [[Pulaski Bridge]] connects [[McGuinness Boulevard]] in Greenpoint to 11th Street, Jackson Avenue, and Hunters Point Avenue in [[Long Island City]]. The J. J. Byrne Memorial Bridge (a.k.a. [[Greenpoint Avenue Bridge]]) connects the sections of [[Greenpoint Avenue]] in Greenpoint and Long Island City. A lesser bridge connects [[Grand Street and Grand Avenue|Grand Avenue in Queens to Grand Street in Brooklyn]].

The [[Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge]], built in 1939, traverses Jamaica Bay to connect the Rockaway Peninsula to [[Broad Channel, Queens|Broad Channel]] and the rest of Queens.<ref name="MTA-Cross-Bay-Veterans-Memorial-Bridge-info" /> Constructed in 1937, the [[Marine Parkway–Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge]] links [[Flatbush Avenue]], Brooklyn's longest thoroughfare, with [[Jacob Riis Park]] and the western end of the Peninsula.<ref name="MTA-Gil-Hodges-Bridge-info" /> Both crossings were built and continue to be operated by what is now known as [[MTA Bridges and Tunnels]]. The [[IND Rockaway Line]] parallels the Cross Bay, has a mid-bay station at [[Broad Channel (IND Rockaway Line)|Broad Channel]] which is just a short walk from the [[Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge]], now part of [[Gateway National Recreation Area]] and a major stop on the [[Atlantic Flyway]].