County Route 97 (Suffolk County, New York)

County Route 97
Nicolls Road
Route information
Maintained by SCDPW
Length:	14.38 mi (23.14 km)
Major junctions
South end:	CR 85 near Blue Point
	NY 27 near Patchogue I-495 in Farmingville CR 16 in Farmingville NY 25 in Centereach NY 347 in Lake Grove
North end:	NY 25A in Stony Brook
Highway system
Numbered highways in New York Interstate • U.S. • N.Y. (former) • Reference • County (Suffolk) ← CR 96 CR 98 →

Suffolk County Road 97, also known as Nicolls Road (named after 17th century colonial Governor Richard Nicolls), is a major county road in Suffolk County, New York. It runs north and south from County Route 85 (Montauk Highway) on the border of Bayport and Blue Point to New York State Route 25A in Stony Brook.

Route description

Suffolk CR 97 begins at the Suffolk County Road 85(Montauk Highway) west of the Islip-Brookhaven Town Line in Bayport just west of Blue Point. The median at this end was widened for the purpose of adding a trumpet interchange that was never built. North of Church Street, Nicolls Road becomes the limited-access highway it was originally intended to be, only to be interrupted by Greenbelt Parkway north of the interchange of NY 27. For the rest of the journey CR 97 is a limited-access highway running along the border between Holtsville and Holbrook.

The road runs on two long bridges over Furrows Road (unmarked Suffolk County Road 90), the Main Line of the Long Island Rail Road and Long Island Avenue. Access to Long Island Avenue is available from turning ramps onto Union Avenue which lead to connecting roads that run parallel to CR 97. As the road approaches the Long Island Expressway, it runs below a cloverleaf with collective-distributor roads along the Expressway that were built before Nicolls Road itself, and had served as the southern terminus of Nicolls until 1975. The limited-access portion terminates north of the Portion Road interchange. From here, the road runs along the western side of the Ammerman Campus of Suffolk County Community College where it briefly curves to the northwest, then moves back north after crossing South Coleman Road before reaching the interchange with New York State Route 25.

North of Route 25, the road takes another northwest curve until it reaches Hawkins Road south of Wireless Road, and takes a much more westerly direction. In this section, Hawkins Road serves as a frontage road along the southbound lane between Pond Path Drive and Wireless Road, while Bette Ann Drive was built as an additional frontage road along the northbound lane from Mark Tree Road to the Hawkins and Wireless Road intersection. Both frontage roads are two lanes wide and are bi-directional. Only after crossing Pond Path Drive does Nicolls Road return to a north-south road before reaching New York State Route 347, which is slated to get a cloverleaf interchange.

Beyond NY 347, Nicolls Road is surrounded by suburban development of the 1960s, although very few of that development leads directly to the road. At some point, the developed area ends, and County Route 97 winds through the hills of the State University of New York at Stony Brook with numerous underpasses mainly for pedestrians As the St. George's Golf and County Club becomes more visible, County Route 97 appraches the penultimate intersection between the northernmost driveway into Stony Brook University and a connecting road to Lower Sheep Pasture Road before crossing under the railroad bridge that carries the Port Jefferson Branch of the Long Island Rail Road, where it finally terminates at New York State Route 25A.

History

The road started out as two different main highways through two different colleges in Suffolk County, and was built in stages from north to south.

State University of New York at Stony Brook

The oldest section of Nicolls Road was built in the early-1960's between NY 25A and the Nesconset-Port Jefferson Highway, now known as NY 347. The railroad bridge that carries the Port Jefferson Branch of the Long Island Rail Road replaced an older and narrower one over a former section of Sheep Pasture Road. County Route 97 winds through the hills of the State University of New York at Stony Brook with numerous underpasses before its descent back into suburbia. Nicolls Road bisected two sections of Oxhead Road between Sycamore Avenue and Hawkins Road. In the mid-1970s,^[1] the driveways and pedestrian underpasses around SUNY Stony Brook were relocated in a major reconstruction project.

Suffolk County Community College

The next oldest section of Nicolls Road was built on the ground of the former Suffolk Sanitorium, which was converted into the main campus of Suffolk County Community College. Originally, this segment only ran between South Coleman Road and Portion Road(now Suffolk County Road 16). However it ended up bisecting Horse Block Road. In order to reconnect the western section of Horse Block Road back to Portion Road, two side roads were built. A north–south frontage called Leeds Boulevard and an east–west street called Horse Block Place, between Leeds Boulevard and College Road. A cloverleaf interchange with Portion Road was built in 1971, and the south-to-west ramp connected to both directions on Leeds Boulevard. In the fall of 2008, the left turning lanes at Horseblock Place was eliminated to relieve traffic heading towards the college.

Merging two college roads

Local streets such as Hawkins Road were reconstructed as a frontage road between Pond Path and Wireless Road, while Bette Ann Drive was built as an additional frontage road along the northbound lane west to Mark Tree Road. At the intersection with Hawkins Road and Wireless Road, the southern terminus of the formerly proposed Suffolk County Road 110 (A.O. Smith Turnpike) was intended to be built with an interchange. A.O. Smith Turnpike was to replace Wireless Road, and continue north of New York State Route 347, towards the vicinity of Port Jefferson Harbor leading to a possible bridge to Bridgeport, Connecticut. The interchange with New York State Route 25 was originally built as a widened median intersection that was intended to be a cloverleaf with outer ramps that connected to local streets like North Hammond Road and South Coleman Road, although construction of this interchange had been put on hold for decades.

Along with the merging of the Stony Brook University and Suffolk Community College sections was the 1971 extension south of Portion Road to the Long Island Expressway. The Division Street overpass was built in 1975, four years after the at-grade intersection was built. After years of financial and bureaucratic delays and rampant development, the NY 25 interchange was finally built as New York State's first Single Point Urban Interchange in 1998.^[2]

South of the Long Island Expressway

The construction of Nicolls Road south of exit 62 on I-495 required an extension of Long Island Avenue to Union Avenue, which was cut off by the road and turned into on-off ramps for Long Island Avenue. Two long bridges were built over the Long Island Avenue Extension, the LIRR Main Line, and Furrows Road, which was formerly proposed to be built as part of a Central Suffolk Highway designed to reconnect the two broken ends of New York State Route 24 between East Farmingdale and Calverton. The rest of Nicolls Road remains a limited-access highway until reaching Greenbelt Parkway, south of the interchange with Suffolk County Road 19 (Patchogue-Holbrook Road).

The interchange with New York State Route 27 was originally an intersection that replaced an intersection with Sylvan Avenue, which became a dirt road north of Sunrise Highway. Like the one with New York State Route 25, it was built as a widened median for the purpose of being upgraded into a cloverleaf interchange. In the 1980s it actually was built as a cloverleaf, but to the newly installed service roads along Sunrise Highway, which required the elimination of two nearby roadside parking areas. Many road maps still mistakenly show these parking areas.

References

1. ^ NICOLLS RD over HOSPITAL UNDRPASS (UglyBridges.com)
2. ^ Interchange of the Week; Monday, October 6, 2003 (Empire State Roads)

External links

• Nicolls Road @ NYCROADS.com
• Photographs, December 28, 2003 (The Expressway Site)
• Nicolls Road (The Roads of Long Island)
• Nicolls Road (LIRoads.com)
• Suffolk CR 97 Corridor Study (Suffolk County DPW)