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Westchester County — 102 towns
Amawalk Ardsley Armonk Baldwin Place Banksville Bedford Bedford Hills Bedford Village Briarcliff Manor Bronxville Buchanan Chappaqua Cortlandt Cortlandt Manor Crompond Cross River Croton Falls Croton-on-Hudson Crugers Dobbs Ferry Eastchester Eastview Elmsford Fairview Glenville Goldens Bridge Granite Springs Greenburgh Greenville Harrison Harrison Village Hartsdale Hastings-on-Hudson Hawthorne Heritage Hills Irvington Jefferson Valley Katonah Kitchawan Lake Isle Lake Mohegan Lake Peekskill Larchmont Lewisboro Lewisboro Hamlet Lincoln Park Lincolndale Mamaroneck Mamaroneck Village Millwood Mohegan Lake Montrose Mount Kisco Mount Kisco Village Mount Pleasant Mount Vernon New Castle New Rochelle North Castle North Salem North Salem Hamlet North Tarrytown North White Plains Ossining Ossining Village Peach Lake Peekskill Pelham Pelham Manor Pelham Village Pleasantville Pocantico Hills Port Chester Pound Ridge Purchase Purdys Rye Rye Brook Rye City Salem Center Sarles Corners Scarsdale Scarsdale Village Scotts Corners Shenorock Shrub Oak Sleepy Hollow Somers South Salem Tarrytown Thornwood Tompkins Corners Tuckahoe Valhalla Verplanck Vista Waccabuc West Harrison White Plains Yonkers Yorktown Yorktown Heights
Putnam County — 57 towns
Adams Corners Barnum Corners Brewster Brewster Heights Brewster Hill Bullet Hole Carmel Carmel Hamlet Carmel Hills Christian Corners Cold Spring Continental Village Croton Falls DeForest Corners Deans Corners Drewville Fahnestock Field Corners Garrison Garrison Four Corners Gilbert Corners Glenclyffe Goldens Bridge Haviland Hollow Holmes Hopkins Corners Kent Kent Corners Kent Hills Lake Carmel Lake Peekskill Lake Secor Ludingtonville Mahopac Mahopac Falls Manitou Milltown Nelsonville North Highlands Oscawana Corners Oscawana Lake Patterson Peach Lake Philipstown Purdys Putnam Lake Putnam Valley Sears Corners Secor Corners Southeast Sunnybrook Tilly Foster Tompkins Corners Towners West Mahopac West Patterson White Pond
Dutchess County — 67 towns
Amenia Amenia Union Ameniaville Annandale-on-Hudson Bangall Barrytown Beacon Beekman Chelsea Chlorine Claverick Clinton Clinton Corners Dover Dover Plains East Fishkill Elizaville Fishkill Fishkill Village Freedom Plains Gayhead Glenham Hibernia Hopewell Junction Hyde Park Hyde Park Hamlet LaGrange Lagrangeville Mabbettsville Milan Millbrook Millerton Myers Corners New Hamburg North East Noxon Pawling Pawling Village Pine Plains Pine Plains Hamlet Pleasant Valley Pleasant Valley Hamlet Poughkeepsie Poughquag Red Hook Red Hook Village Red Oaks Mill Rhinebeck Rhinebeck Village Rock City Salt Point Shekomeko Spackenkill Staatsburg Stanford Stormville Tivoli Tivoli Hamlet Union Vale Verbank Wappinger Wappingers Falls Wappingers Falls Hamlet Washington Wassaic Wiccopee Wingdale
Orange County — 78 towns
Balmville Beaverdam Lake-Salisbury Mills Blooming Grove Bloomingburg Bullville Campbell Hall Central Valley Chester Chester Village Circleville Continental Village Cornwall Cornwall-on-Hudson Craigville Crawford Cuddebackville Deerpark Firthcliffe Florida Fort Montgomery Gardnertown Goshen Goshen Village Greenville Greenwood Lake Greycourt Hamptonburgh Harriman Highland Falls Highland Mills Highlands Howells Johnson Kiryas Joel Maybrook Mechanicstown Middlehope Middletown Minisink Monroe Monroe Village Montgomery Montgomery Village Mount Hope Mountainville New Hampton New Milford New Windsor Newburgh Orange Lake Otisville Pine Bush Pine Island Port Jervis Port Jervis Village Rock Tavern Salisbury Mills Scotchtown Slate Hill Sparrowbush Sugar Loaf Turners Tuxedo Tuxedo Park Unionville Vails Gate Walden Wallkill Walton Park Warwick Warwick Village Washington Heights Washingtonville Wawayanda West Point Westtown Wisner Woodbury
Rockland County — 55 towns
Airmont Bardonia Blauvelt Central Nyack Chestnut Ridge Clarkstown Congers Doodletown Garnerville Grand View-on-Hudson Grassy Point Greenbush Haverstraw Haverstraw Village Hillburn Hillcrest Johnsontown Jones Point Kaser Ladentown Letchworth Village Monsey Montebello Mount Ivy Nanuet Nauraushaun New City New Hempstead New Square North Highview Nyack Orangeburg Orangetown Palisades Pearl River Piermont Pomona Ramapo Rockland Lake Sloatsburg South Nyack Sparkill Spring Valley Stony Point Suffern Tallman Tappan Thiells Tomkins Cove Upper Nyack Valley Cottage Wesley Hills West Haverstraw West Nyack Willow Grove
Fairfield County — 59 towns
Banksville Bethel Botsford Bridgeport Brookfield Byram Candlewood Isle Candlewood Shores Chickahominy Compo Beach Cos Cob Cove Cummings Beach Danbury Darien Dodgingtown East Norwalk Easton Fairfield Georgetown Glenbrook Glenville Green Farms Greens Farms Greenwich Hawleyville Long Ridge Monroe Monroe Center New Canaan New Fairfield Newtown Nichols Noroton Noroton Heights North Stamford Norwalk Old Greenwich Redding Ridgefield Riverside Rowayton Sandy Hook Saugatuck Shelton Sherman Shippan Point Southport Springdale Stamford Stratford Tashua Tokeneke Tokeneke Beach Trumbull Turn of River Weston Westport Wilton
Travel Guide

Yonkers to JFK: the chauffeur’s route guide for the most common Westchester airport run

Yonkers to JFK is the most common airport run we work that doesn’t start in Mohegan Lake, and it is also the trip where chauffeur experience matters most. There are three legitimate routes and the right one depends on the time of day, the day of the week, the weather, and what is happening at the Henry Hudson Bridge toll plaza. Here is how the working choice gets made.

The three routes

Route 1 is Saw Mill River Parkway south to the Henry Hudson Parkway, across the Henry Hudson Bridge, down the West Side to the Triboro (RFK Bridge), then the Grand Central Parkway east to the Van Wyck Expressway south to JFK. This is the parkway route — the scenic one — and it works on weekends and off-peak weekdays.

Route 2 is the Cross County Parkway east to the Hutchinson River Parkway south to the Whitestone Bridge to the Whitestone Expressway south to the Van Wyck south to JFK. This is the bridge route. It is the right call any weekday after 7am and before 9pm because it skips Manhattan entirely.

Route 3 is the Cross County to the Hutch to the Throgs Neck Bridge, then the Cross Island Parkway south, then the Belt Parkway briefly, then the Van Wyck south. This is the long-way-around route, used when the Whitestone is degraded or the Whitestone Expressway is stopped at the LGA exit.

When to use which

Route 1 — Saw Mill to Henry Hudson to Triboro

Use the parkway route on weekend mornings before 9am, on weekday evenings after 8pm, or any time the West Side Highway is showing green on traffic. It is the prettiest route — you get the Hudson on your right from Hastings down to the GW — and it adds maybe 10 minutes in light traffic. In heavy traffic it can add 45 minutes, because once the West Side locks up below 96th Street there is no escape until 79th. We do not use this route during weekday rush periods. Empire City Casino pickups at Yonkers Raceway go this way half the time — passengers heading to JFK from Empire City have already crossed into Yonkers proper, and Saw Mill access is two minutes from the casino exit.

Route 2 — Cross County to Hutch to Whitestone

This is the default route for 80% of our Yonkers-to-JFK trips. The Cross County Parkway runs east-west through Yonkers and connects directly to the Hutch southbound. The Hutch south of the Cross County feeds into the Bronx and over the Whitestone — total time from Cross County and Saw Mill to JFK terminal curb is 45 minutes on a normal weekday morning, 55 in the afternoon. The Cross County itself can back up between Saw Mill River Road and the Bronx River Parkway exit during 7:30-9am eastbound — that is the only soft spot on this route. After 9am it clears.

Route 3 — Throgs Neck

The Throgs Neck adds 3-5 miles compared to the Whitestone and is the right call only when the Whitestone Expressway is showing red between LGA and the Van Wyck merge. That happens during PM rush often enough that we check the live map before committing. The Throgs Neck approach also adds tolling depending on the EZ-Pass plan, but for a corporate trip the time savings outweigh the few dollars.

Empire City Casino pickups

Yonkers Raceway / Empire City Casino at 810 Yonkers Avenue is one of the busiest pickup points in the city for us. The casino has a dedicated chauffeur queue at the main entrance, and we typically wait there during the passenger’s last hour of play. For passengers heading to JFK from Empire City, the entrance to Saw Mill River Parkway is two minutes north on Yonkers Avenue, and the entrance to the Cross County is one minute south. Which route to choose depends entirely on the time — pre-9am or post-8pm, we go Saw Mill; midday, we go Cross County.

Cross County Parkway traffic patterns

The Cross County is the spine of Yonkers airport travel and it has predictable weak points. Eastbound, the merge with the Hutch south of Sprain Brook Parkway backs up 7:15-9am on weekdays. Westbound, the same merge gets the evening reverse, 4:30-6:30pm. Saturday traffic on the Cross County is light until 11am, then picks up steadily through 4pm with Cross County Shopping Center traffic at the Central Park Avenue exit. Sundays are clear until churches let out around noon. Holiday weekends — Memorial Day Friday, Labor Day Friday, and the Wednesday before Thanksgiving — turn the Cross County into a parking lot, and we add 30-45 minutes to the JFK timing on those days.

Predawn vs rush-hour timing

For a 7am flight out of JFK, we leave Yonkers at 5:00am. Predawn traffic is empty on every route, and the only variable is the JFK terminal curb itself, which fills with Uber and taxi traffic around 5:30am. For a 9am flight we leave at 6:30am — early enough to clear the Cross County before it congests. For a 10am or later flight, the trip becomes a normal 60-75 minute run with regular morning rush traffic, and we leave 2.5 hours before scheduled departure.

Evening JFK pickups are simpler because the inbound flight time is the constraint, not the outbound traffic. We monitor flight status and leave Yonkers timed to arrive at the cell-phone lot 15 minutes before wheels-down.

Book your Yonkers airport trip

Yonkers to JFK is a route we run multiple times a day, and the difference between a clean trip and a stressed passenger is usually whether the chauffeur chose Saw Mill, Cross County, or Throgs Neck based on what the day actually looks like. Call 914-222-1919 to book your Yonkers airport pickup or drop-off.