In December 1957, the state approved a $9.5 million project to widen a 2 miles segment of Whitestone Parkway from Northern Boulevard to the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge, build a new bridge over the Flushing River, and improve the parkway to Interstate Highway standards using funds from the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1952, in which the federal government would pay 90% of the proposed highway's cost.