New York State Route 25A

New York State Route 25A is a state highway on Long Island in New York, United States. It serves as the main east–west route for most of the North Shore of Long Island, running for from Interstate 495 at the Queens–Midtown Tunnel in the New York City borough of Queens to NY 25 in Calverton, Suffolk County. The highway is a northern alternate route of NY 25, which follows a more inland routing along Jericho Turnpike.
The route is known for its scenic path through decidedly lesser-developed areas such as Brookville, Fort Salonga, Centerport, and Roslyn. It is known by various names along its routing, the most prominent of which include Northern Boulevard, North Hempstead Turnpike, Main Street, Fort Salonga Road, and North Country Road. It merges with NY 25 for approximately in Smithtown.

Transportation

Northern Boulevard is served by several MTA and NICE bus routes.
The Q63 runs via Northern Boulevard from Long Island City to Flushing.
The Q66 runs via Northen Boulevard from Woodside to Flushing.
The Q19 runs via Northern Blvd from Corona to Flushing.
The Q12 runs via Northern Blvd from Flushing to Little Neck.
The Q13 runs via Northern Blvd from Flushing to Bell Blvd.
The Q28 runs via Northern Blvd from Flushing to Croncheron Av.
The Q25, Q50, and Q61 runs via Northern Blvd from Main St to Linden Place.
The Q26 uses Northen Blvd from Main St to College Point Blvd.
The n20G uses Northern Blvd from Flushing to Great Neck.
The n20x uses Northern Blvd from Flushing to Roslyn.
The n20H and n21 use Northern Blvd from Great Neck to Roslyn.
The n25 and n26 use Northern Blvd from Great Neck to Lake Success.

Route description

Queens

NY 25A begins at I-495 exit 14, the second exit off the Long Island Expressway, in Long Island City in the New York City borough of Queens. The route initially heads northward, following 21st Street for three blocks before turning northeast onto Jackson Avenue. Here, NY 25A widens from two to four lanes, a width that the road retains well into Nassau County. The highway serves the Long Island City Courthouse on its way to a junction with Queens Boulevard at the foot of the Queensboro Bridge. Here, the road changes names again, becoming Northern Boulevard. Unlike the first two names, the Northern Boulevard name extends for a considerable distance, remaining with NY 25A through the neighborhoods of Long Island City, Woodside, Jackson Heights, Corona, East Elmhurst, Flushing, Bayside, Douglaston and Little Neck. Northern Boulevard is the starting point of several prominent streets, such as Springfield Boulevard, Steinway Street, Roosevelt Avenue and Woodside Avenue.
As Northern Boulevard, NY 25A begins to follow a more easterly path, loosely paralleling the Sunnyside Yard to the south. NY 25A continues east into Woodside, and the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway intersects with Northern Boulevard at the Woodside–Jackson Heights border. Northern Boulevard serves as the southern border for East Elmhurst from the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway to 114th Street. It also serves as the northern border for Jackson Heights and North Corona. NY 25A becomes a part of a large street grid and running along a linear alignment through Jackson Heights, East Elmhurst, and Corona. It eventually reaches Flushing Meadows-Corona Park, where the highway intersects with the Grand Central Parkway just northwest of Citi Field, where it briefly becomes a freeway whilst running parallel to the Whitestone Expressway. NY 25A then proceeds east as a surface road again to Flushing, where it intersects the Van Wyck Expressway.
Northern Boulevard continues through Flushing, where it was once known as Broadway, towards Bayside. The route travels generally easterly across Bayside, intersecting with the Clearview Expressway along the way. Not far to the east, it crosses over the Cross Island Parkway at Alley Pond Park. Past the Cross Island Parkway, NY 25A goes through Douglaston and Little Neck before crossing the New York City line into Nassau County. The five-mile stretch of Northern Boulevard stretching eastward from Flushing has been described as roughly coterminous with Koreatown, Queens.

Nassau County

NY 25A, still bearing the Northern Boulevard name, crosses into Nassau County at the Great Neck hamlet known as University Gardens. It winds its way around a steep curve in the Great Neck area before descending into Manhasset and the hamlet's Miracle Mile shopping area. The route continues eastward, intersecting with NY 101 and Nassau County Route 101 just south of Port Washington, in the villages of Flower Hill and Roslyn Estates, ahead of a split in Northern Boulevard. Old Northern Boulevard, which once carried the NY 25A designation, is the old route, which passes through the village of Roslyn, whilst Northern Boulevard itself bypasses the village via. the Roslyn Viaduct, which carries NY 25A over Hempstead Harbor.
The old and new routes converge east of the viaduct at an interchange with Bryant Avenue, and Northern Boulevard heads northeastward through East Hills and Greenvale, where it intersects with Glen Cove Road. In Brookville, NY 25A passes the New York Institute of Technology and the C.W. Post Campus of Long Island University before intersecting with NY 107. Past this point, the route slowly curves back to the east ahead of a junction with NY 106 south of East Norwich. NY 25A's run as a four-lane road ends here, and the route becomes a simple two-lane country road. It briefly reverts to four lanes at Cold Spring Road, and the highway enters Suffolk County less than a mile later.
Some discrepancy exists over NY 25A's street name in Nassau County, particularly regarding the eastern half of the county. While signage for Northern Boulevard exists as far east as Cold Spring Road, implying that Northern Boulevard extends from Queens to the Suffolk line, several businesses located between NY 107 and NY 106 give North Hempstead Turnpike as the highway's name. Additionally, an old, undated Hagstrom Map from the late 1940s indicates that the Turnpike name extends as far west as the Queens line.

Suffolk County

NY 25A makes a sharp northward turn just inside the county line at an intersection with NY 108. It travels through Cold Spring Harbor, where it is initially called Harbor Road, and then Main Street, before curving back to the east and heading into downtown Huntington. In the hamlet, the road widens to four lanes and is also known as Main Street. At an intersection with County Route 35 on the east side of Huntington, NY 25A narrows to two lanes once more and heads toward Centerport, where it becomes Fort Salonga Road. This name remains in place through Centerport, Northport and Fort Salonga to the vicinity of Sunken Meadow State Park. Just south of the park, NY 25A intersects with its first limited-access highway since the Cross Island Parkway in Queens when it encounters the northernmost exit on the Sunken Meadow State Parkway.
Past the parkway, the route changes names from Fort Salonga Road to Main Street as it enters Kings Park, home to the now-closed Kings Park Psychiatric Center. The similarly numbered New York State Bicycle Route 25A joins NY 25A here, switching from CR 11 to NY 25A at the former's east end in the center of the hamlet. NY 25A continues on an eastward track to San Remo, where it makes a sharp southward turn at an intersection with St. Johnland Road in the center of the community. The route takes on the St. Johnland Road name and loosely parallels the Nissequogue River as it heads toward Smithtown. They cross just west of the Village of the Branch at the Smithtown Bull, where NY 25A intersects with its parent route. NY Bike Route 25A ends here; however, NY 25A continues east into the hamlet of Smithtown by way of an overlap with NY 25 along Jericho Turnpike.
The Jericho Turnpike name ends a short distance into the community at a junction with Edgewood Avenue, giving way to Main Street. The Main Street name continues into the adjacent Village of the Branch, where NY 25 and NY 25A split at an intersection that also serves as the northern terminus of NY 111. The latter route heads to the South Shore of Long Island while NY 25 continues eastward and NY 25A heads northeast toward St. James and Stony Brook as North Country Road. This section of NY 25A runs along the Port Jefferson Branch of the Long Island Rail Road and is also mostly part of NY Bike Route 25, with occasional diversions. Along this stretch, NY 25A passes the Stony Brook Museum and Carriage House and Stony Brook University.
On the eastern edge of the Stony Brook campus, the route intersects with the north end of CR 97. It continues on a generally northeasterly track to East Setauket, where it turns to head due east toward Port Jefferson. It enters the village as West Broadway, but turns south onto Main Street once the road reaches the harbor. NY 25A follows Main Street southeastward to Port Jefferson Station, home to the end of the LIRR's Port Jefferson Branch and NY 25A's junction with the north end of NY 112. At the latter, NY 25A makes a sharp turn to the east, heading through the hamlet on Hallock Avenue toward its intersection with NY 347. NY 347 ends here, and NY 25A briefly becomes a wider highway to match the width of the former road.
About from NY 347, NY 25A intersects with CR 83. From here, the road passes through Mount Sinai and Miller Place before splitting again to bypass Rocky Point. The old path of the road passes through the community while NY 25A veers south of the hamlet. They reconnect east of Rocky Point to continue toward Shoreham and an intersection with CR 46 near Brookhaven State Park. NY 25A continues east for another through Wading River to a fork in the road at Calverton National Cemetery, where the route veers southeast while Sound Avenue, the other leg of the fork, heads due east towards the North Fork of Long Island. NY 25A runs along the eastern edge of the cemetery and through part of the Brookhaven National Laboratory grounds before ending about from the split at a junction with NY 25 in Calverton.