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New Flyover Highway To Open At LaGuardia Airport

NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- Big changes are coming to LaGuardia Airport.

Governor Andrew Cuomo Tuesday opened a new "fly over" highway that will make traveling from Manhattan a whole lot easier.

It is the first of 26 new bridges and fly over highways that will be built at LaGuardia Airport. But this one could have the biggest impact because 40 percent of the traffic coming from Manhattan will use this highway. It will go from exit seven on the Grand Central Parkway to terminals B, C and D.

"This flyover is going to make a dramatic improvement already on the traffic," said Cuomo. "This road configuration, as soon as you got off of the Grand Central Parkway, made no sense. As we promised, you would see a difference and the difference is going to start today."

"The new road network will have a vastly improved wayfinding signage and vastly improved lighting and vastly improved traffic flow," said Port Authority Executive Director Rick Cotton.

"This is going to make it simple and alleviate traffic," Cuomo added. "There will be more parking. There will be more informed parking that will tell you where there are spaces available. You will not have to do that seek and destroy mission of fighting for a parking spot."

When the highway construction is completed, it will also eliminate most of the traffic signals, going from 19 now to just three.

The first fly over highway is scheduled to become operational starting at 4:00 a.m. Wednesday.

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