New York State Highway 440
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New York State Highway 440 is a state highway of New York State.
It is located entirely on Staten Island. It begins at the Outerbridge Crossing near the southwestern end of the island, where it connects with the Middlesex County segment of New Jersey State Highway 440.
It traverses the island's largely unpopulated meadowlands along its western flank as a freeway called the West Shore Expressway until it joins with the Staten Island Expressway (Interstate 278) near the northwest corner of the island. There are nine exits from the Outerbridge Crossing to the Staten Island Expressway, if the interchanges with both the Richmond Parkway and the latter are included; however, two of the exits can only be accessed from one direction. The section between the Richmond Parkway and Arthur Kill Road opened in 1972, and the rest of the parkway opened in 1976. The entire expressway spans 7.7 miles (12.39 km) and was ceremonially designated the Pearl Harbor Memorial Expressway by New York State Governor George Pataki in 1999; however, the expressway's official name did not change.
Approximately 1¼ miles (2 km) to the east, it breaks from the Staten Island Expressway and continues northward for another 2.6 miles (4.18 km) as the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Expressway until it reaches the Bayonne Bridge. Opened in 1964 under the name Willowbrook Parkway, it was renamed for the slain civil rights leader in 1990. There are three exits in this section, one of which is accessible to southbound traffic only. Originally, the parkway was to also run south of the expressway for 5 miles (8.05 km) to Great Kills Park (now part of the Gateway National Recreation Area) on the island's East Shore; however, oppositon from both local property owners and environmental activists prevented construction of this spur, although its original route has never been formally demapped.
On the summit of the bridge, it becomes the Hudson County segment of New Jersey State Highway 440. New York 440 thus connects the two segments of New Jersey 440.