What Happened
The westbound Long Island Expressway will be shut down at Exit 62 in Holtsville on Tuesday night, with the closure running from 10 p.m. through 5 a.m., to allow crews to perform asphalt pavement repairs, the New York State Department of Transportation announced Thursday afternoon. According to a Patch report published July 2, 2026, the NYSDOT confirmed the planned maintenance work, which will require a full closure of the westbound travel lanes at that location for a seven-hour overnight window.
Exit 62 corresponds to Nicolls Road, also designated as County Route 97, one of the most heavily traveled north-south corridors on Long Island’s mid-Suffolk region. During the closure, motorists who would normally continue westbound past that interchange will instead be detoured onto the North Service Road, the agency said. The North Service Road runs parallel to the LIE and provides an alternate path for drivers to continue their westbound journey before re-entering the Expressway at a subsequent on-ramp.
The Patch report noted that the NYSDOT explicitly cautioned that construction activities are weather-dependent and subject to change based on conditions. Drivers planning to travel westbound on the LIE late Tuesday evening or in the early hours of Wednesday morning should monitor NYSDOT communications and traffic advisories in advance of departure to confirm whether the closure remains in effect or has been postponed due to weather.
No injuries, crashes, or roadway hazards prompted this closure — it is a fully planned and scheduled maintenance operation. The agency did not provide further details regarding the specific scope of the asphalt pavement repair work, how many lane miles of roadway surface are being addressed, or which contractor is performing the work. The announcement was made Thursday, July 2, giving westbound LIE commuters nearly a week of advance notice ahead of the Tuesday overnight closure.
The timing of the closure — beginning at 10 p.m. on a Tuesday — reflects the NYSDOT’s standard practice of scheduling high-impact road maintenance during overnight off-peak hours to minimize disruption to commuter and commercial traffic. The 5 a.m. reopening is designed to ensure westbound lanes are restored to full operation before the morning rush hour begins. Drivers heading westbound on the LIE who are approaching Exit 62 from the Holtsville area should plan accordingly and allow additional time if using the North Service Road detour.
Location & Road Context
Exit 62 on the Long Island Expressway sits in Holtsville, a hamlet in the Town of Brookhaven in central Suffolk County. Nicolls Road (County Route 97) at this interchange is a major arterial connector, linking the LIE to communities to the north including Stony Brook and to the south toward Holbrook and Sayville. The North Service Road, which will serve as the designated detour, runs the full length of the Expressway corridor and is a well-established alternate route familiar to regular LIE commuters.
The Long Island Expressway — officially designated as I-495 — is one of the busiest highways in the United States and one of the most incident-prone corridors on Long Island. Our database records 1,478 incidents on I-495, and in the days immediately surrounding this announcement, the road has already seen a vehicle fire on I-495 and multiple crashes on I-495 reported on July 3, 2026 alone. The overnight maintenance window is intended to address pavement degradation before it contributes to additional hazardous conditions on the corridor. Holtsville-area drivers can also reference the Holtsville town page for additional local traffic context.
Broader Impact
The closure falls in the immediate aftermath of the July 4th Independence Day holiday weekend — one of the highest-traffic travel periods of the year on Long Island — meaning the westbound LIE through Holtsville will have already handled an elevated volume of vehicles returning from the East End before the maintenance window opens Tuesday night. The post-holiday timing is strategically sensible: pavement that endures holiday weekend traffic loads often surfaces stress fractures and wear that requires prompt repair. Drivers who regularly use the Nicolls Road interchange to access communities along the I-495 corridor in central Suffolk County should build the North Service Road detour into their plans for Tuesday evening and watch for any weather-related schedule changes announced by the New York State Department of Transportation in the days ahead.