The Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was slated to be connected with several parkways and highways on either side, which were built in tandem with the tunnel. On the Brooklyn side, the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was under construction, providing a connector to the tunnel from the north. Although it was substantially complete by December 1948, the expressway could not open until the tunnel was complete. On the Manhattan side, the southernmost section of the West Side Elevated Highway, which connected to Battery Park and the future tunnel, opened in November 1948. An extension of the East River Drive (by now renamed the FDR Drive) to the future Battery Park Underpass and Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was approved in 1949. Eventually, the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was also slated to connect to the Narrows Bridge to Staten Island. However, the Battery Park Underpass was not expected to be completed until 1952, and the FDR Drive extension would take even longer to be completed. Additionally, although a direct ramp from the Brooklyn-bound tunnel to the northbound Brooklyn-Queens Expressway was planned, construction was being delayed due to the difficulty of evicting tenants within the path of the ramp. Moreover, the Narrows Bridge could not be financed, let alone started, until the Brooklyn–Battery Tunnel was completed.