What Happened
A minor crash on westbound I-495 in Queens County blocked two left lanes on Tuesday, September 15, 2026. No fatalities or serious injuries were reported. The two blocked lanes restricted westbound throughput on one of the New York metropolitan area’s most heavily traveled expressway stretches.
No additional details — vehicle types, collision mechanism, exact time of impact, or responding agencies — have been confirmed in the initial incident record. Police have not yet released names of any parties involved.
Location & Road Context
The crash occurred on the westbound side of I-495, the Long Island Expressway, within Queens County. Long Island Traffic’s incident registry shows I-495 has logged 103 recorded incidents in the past 30 days and 482 so far in 2026, making this one of the corridor’s most active crash stretches in the region. The most recent prior fatal crash on the corridor occurred August 26, 2026.
Queens County has recorded 348 accidents in Long Island Traffic’s local incident database. The westbound lanes at this section of the LIE funnel heavy commuter and commercial traffic toward the Midtown Tunnel and the Queens–Brooklyn approaches, and left-lane blockages routinely extend delays well upstream.
Updates
- Sep 15, 2026: Additional reporting merged into this article: “Crash on I-495” (via 511ny)