PARK AND 
CEMETERY. 
131 ’ 
EAST DRIVE, CENTRAL PARK, NEAR 59th ST., SHOWING EAST DRIVE, CENTRAL PARK NEAR 72nd STREET; 
RAISED ROADWAY AND HIGH CROWN. ROADWAY IN GOOD CONDITION; RESURFACED 
LAST SEASON. 
THE PARK ROADWAYS OF NEW YORK CITY 
Probably no park roadways in the 
country are subjected to more severe 
automobile traffic conditions than 
those of New York City. “Good 
Roads,” recently published an inter- 
esting and careful study of park road- 
ways of the Borough of Manhattan, 
and the following facts and illustra- 
tions are used by courtesy of that 
journal. 
In the Borough of Manhattan, New 
York City, many miles of streets are 
classified as parkways, and are under 
the control of the Department of 
Parks. Some of these are park drives, 
in that they are situated within the 
areas of parks, but others, such as 
Riverside Drive, W. 86th St. and West 
End Ave., are to all intents and pur- 
poses city streets. 
Although heavy trucking is prohib- 
ited on these parkways, and only such 
business traffic as is necessary is al- 
lowed on them, they are nevertheless 
subjected to an exceedingly heavy 
traffic. This is especially true of Riv- 
erside Drive and the two main roads 
extending through Central Park from 
north to south, East Drive and West 
Drive. The traffic on all of these is 
composed principally of automobiles, 
many of them traveling at high speed. 
On Riverside Drive a line of automo- 
bile busses is operated. The machines 
run at frequent intervals and are par- 
ticularly destructive to road surfaces 
by reason of the construction of the 
driving wheels, which are equipped 
with solid tires made up of blocks of 
rubber. 
The drives in Central Park carry a 
traffic that is exceedingly heavy and 
consists principally of automobiles. 
The conditions in Central Park differ 
from those encountered in many 
other city parks, in that the traffic is 
heavy throughout the entire year. 
This difference is well exemplified by 
a consideration of the conditions ob- 
taining in Central Park and in Pros- 
pect Park, Brooklyn. The latter lies 
between a considerable portion of 
Greater New York and Coney Island. 
The drives running through it form 
thoroughfares for automobile traffic to 
and from Coney Island, and the traffic 
is naturally much heavier durin g the 
summer months than during the re- 
mainder of the year. In Central Park 
the drives carry not only vehicles 
driven through the park for pleasure, 
but also a large volume of other traf- 
fic. The drives are used as thorough- 
fares between the theater and shop- 
ping and the residential districts and 
by many driving to and from business. 
This particular class of travel is as 
great in the winter as in the summer, 
if not greater. 
Riverside Drive, from 72d St. to the 
viaduct at 129th St., and the drives 
in Central Park have a total length 
of approximately 13 miles, about 10 of 
which are included in the roads in 
Central Park. The principal ones of 
the latter are East Drive and West 
Drive. These extend through the 
park from 59th St. to 110th St., wind- 
ing in a general north and south di- 
rection and connected with each other 
and with Central Park West on the 
west border of the park and Fifth 
Avenue on the east border by short 
stretches of road. Besides these two 
main roads and the connecting roads, 
four streets designated as Transverse 
Roads Nos. 1 , 2, 3 and 4 cross the 
park from east to west, connecting 
East 65th St. with West 66th St., East 
79th St. with West 80th St., East 85th 
St. with West 86th St. and East 97th 
St. with West 97th St. 
Riverside Drive and the drives in 
Central Park are of gravel, the De- 
partment of Parks having used this 
material for road building for the 
past fifty years. All of the work has 
been done by day labor and paid for 
out of the regular labor and mainte- 
nance appropriations. The Central 
Park drives vary from 35 to 60 ft. in 
width and were originally built on tel- 
ford, or, in some instances, rubble 
foundations. These were made from 
8 to 30 ins. deep and were covered 
with a course of comparatively large 
sized broken stone on which the 
gravel was spread in three courses, 
each about 2 ins. in thickness. 
Repair and maintenance work on 
the drives has consisted prin- 
cipally of adding new gravel without 
removing any of the old material, so 
that the grades of the roads have 
been materially raised in many in- 
stances. At one place on East Drive 
where a trench was opened recently 
gravel to a depth of nearly 24 ins. 
was found. One of the accompany- 
ing illustrations taken at this trench 
shows a cross section of the roadway 
with a rule held in position indicating 
the depth of the gravel. As showing 
the depth of new material over the 
old, another of the accompanying il- 
lustrations is of interest. This was 
taken at the side of the drive in the 
same trench and shows an old edging 
stone about 9 ins. below the present 
