Definition of "parkway"

This street, transferred to the West Side park system in 1879, was extended and changed into a parkway passing through that pretty and well-improved urban space, Union Park

1891, Clarence Pullen, “The Parks and Parkways of Chicago”, in John Bonner, George William Curtis, Henry Mills Alden, editors, Harper's Weekly, volume 35, page 418

Where the boundary roads are the only roads, the whole strip is properly called a parkway; and this name is retained even when the space between the boundary roads is reduced to lowest terms and becomes nothing more than a shaded green ribbon, devoted perhaps to the separate use of the otherwise dangerous electric cars. In other words, parkways, like parks, may be absolutely formal or strikingly picturesque, according to circumstances.

1895, Engineering Magazine, volume 9, page 256

This would give eight trees at each street intersection, which would finally grow into groups, over-arching and emphasizing these intersections, the blocks between these groups to be planted with smaller and more ornamental trees and forming, as it were, a section of a parkway.

1896, F. H. Nutter, “The Landscape Gardener in the Country”, in The Minnesota Horticulturalist, volume 24, number 9, page 358

In the case of offensive advertising in the neighborhood of a parkway, it is evident that such advertising is displayed to attract the attention of the people that frequent a public pleasure-ground.

1897, “The Advertising Nuisance [Editorial Article]”, in Charles Sprague Sargent, editor, Garden and Forest: A Journal of Horticulture, Landscape Art, page 409

As this scheme cannot be carried out without further legislation, application will have to be made to the General Court for authority to construct a way which will serve the purposes of a parkway and for ordinary travel.

1897, “Annual Report of the Park Department for the Year 1896”, in Documents, Boston (Mass.)

A parkway, so far as it can be discriminated from a boulevard, includes more breadth of turf or planted ground and includes, usually, narrow passages of natural scenery of varying width, giving it a somewhat park-like character

1919, Liberty Hyde Bailey, The Standard Cyclopedia of Horticulture, page 1806

Thus a parkway might vary in width from 100 to 1000 feet. An average width of 300 feet should provide a pleasing setting for the roadway in addition to a bridle path and hiking trail.

1926, “The Cornell Civil Engineer”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name), volumes 35-36, page 198

This highway, which is virtually a parkway and designed primarily for pleasure traffic, begins at Wilmington and extends northward along the Brandywine Creek to its junction with Valley Creek […]

1929, Housing, volume 18, page 146

Mr. Moses: Of course, the word "parkways" would have to be defined, as it has been to some extent by the courts, but what we intended by scenic highway is a highway like Storm King. That is not a parkway, but is a scenic highway […]

1938, Revised Record of the Constitutional Convention of the State of New York, page 2691

A parkway is a combined park and road. Strictly speaking, it is a road through a park and is indistinguishable from the park areas which it traverses.

1943, Master Recreation Plan, Marin County, California, number 13, page 9

Natchez Trace is a parkway. It is not a freeway nor a throughway nor a speedway

1959, Mississippi Highways, volumes 28-29, page 30