Taken from Wikipedia, "Ocean Parkway is a 4.86-mile (7.82 km) boulevard in the west-central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is inventoried by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) as New York State Route 908H (NY 908H), an unsigned reference route.
Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who were also responsible for designing Central Park and Prospect Park, suggested the construction of Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway to Brooklyn park commissioners in reports prepared in 1866. The proposed Ocean and Eastern Parkways would connect Prospect Park with Coney Island and East New York, respectively. Their plan for the parkways were inspired by boulevards such as Under den Linden in Berlin and Avenue Foch in Paris. However, Ocean and Eastern Parkways were considered to be improvements over these two thoroughfares, since both would contain service roads separated from the main road by tree-lined medians. Because the road to Coney Island would reach the ocean, it was thus called "Ocean Parkway".
Apartment buildings at Ocean Parkway and 18th Ave.
On May 11, 1869, the New York State Legislature gave authority to the City of Brooklyn's commissioners to "lay out, open, and improve a public highway or avenue from Prospect Park, in the City of Brooklyn, towards Coney Island." The act was later amended in 1872. The parkway's construction started in 1874, and the next year, the segment was open between Prospect Park and Kings Highway. The remaining section to Coney Island started in "early spring" 1876 and was finished on November 11 of that year. Construction costs were paid by landowners whose property laid 1,050 feet (320 m) on either side of the parkway. The costs at the time were estimated as being $1 million (equivalent to $24,155,000 in 2018), with the section north of Kings Highway accounting for three-fourths of the cost. Subsequent legislation passed in 1882 relieved these landowners of two-thirds of that cost.
The pedestrian path was split in 1894 to create the first bike path in the United States; the cyclists' speed limit was 10 miles per hour (16 km/h) on the parkway and 12 miles per hour (19 km/h) on the bike path.
The Prospect Expressway, built in the 1950s, replaced the northernmost half-mile of the parkway. By the 1970s, there were calls both to renew Ocean Parkway and to make it into a landmark. After a short controversy over whether such a landmark was eligible for federal funds, the parkway was designated a landmark by the city in 1975. Afterward, Ocean Parkway was restored and repaved. The Special Ocean Parkway District was designated by the city in 1978, and the reconstruction was completed two years later.
In 2016 an overhaul of traffic regulations at major intersections was proposed, including traffic signals for service roads. The regulations were unpopular among residents, but have gone into effect at Kings Highway and Avenue J. The project was finished in 2017. As part of the Vision Zero program and to reduce traffic-related deaths, speed limits were lowered to 25 miles per hour (40 km/h)."
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