Ocean Parkway is a boulevard in the west-central portion of the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is inventoried by the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) as New York State Route 908H (NY 908H), an unsigned reference route. Route description Ocean Parkway extends over a distance of about five miles (8 km), running almost north to south from Machate Circle at the southwestern corner of Prospect Park to the Atlantic Ocean waterfront at Brighton Beach. The NYSDOT designates the section south of Church Avenue as an unsigned reference route. Ocean Parkway begins at Machate Circle at the southern entrance of Prospect Park and travels westward before merging south into Prospect Expressway. After the expressway ends at Church Avenue, then passes through Windsor Terrace and what is present-day Kensington. The parkway runs roughly parallel to Coney Island Avenue, an important commercial avenue several blocks to the east. After running through several neighborhoods such as Midwood, Homecrest, and Sheepshead Bay, the parkway ends at Surf Avenue in Brighton Beach, close to the Riegelmann Boardwalk and ocean. The parkway is similar to Eastern Parkway in its layout. It includes a central seven-lane roadway (the middle lane being used for left turns), two grassy medians on each side with bike and pedestrian paths, two service roads on the periphery, and two exterior sidewalks, for a total width of 210 feet (64 m). The Brooklyn Parks Commission initially controlled another to each side. According to the original legislation, the medians could only be used for trees, plazas, and other ornamentation. As such, trees, playing tables, and benches line the pedestrian path and boulevard. A bike lane is located on the western median. The parkway parallels the New York City Subway's Culver Line () and Brighton Line () from the Belt Parkway to Church Avenue. History Frederick Law Olmsted and Calvert Vaux, who were also responsible for designing Central Park and Prospect Park, suggested the construction of Eastern Parkway and Ocean Parkway to Brooklyn park commissioners in reports prepared in 1866. The proposed Ocean and Eastern Parkways would connect Prospect Park with Coney Island and East New York, respectively. Their plan for the parkways were inspired by boulevards such as Under den Linden in Berlin and Avenue Foch in Paris. However, Ocean and Eastern Parkways were considered to be improvements over these two thoroughfares, since both would contain service roads separated from the