The road heads northward as a four-lane freeway, paralleling the Bronx River and the Amtrak-owned Northeast Corridor railroad tracks.

There is one intermediate interchange, which is for Westchester Avenue, about 0.6 miles (1.0 km) north of the split from the Bruckner Expressway.

The roadway continues beyond the Cross Bronx as a short connector to local West Farms streets.

[28][7]: 10 [26]: 80  It was cancelled by Governor Nelson Rockefeller in 1971, one year before its originally projected completion, though construction on the extension never started.

[10] Because of the cancellation of the extension, the Sheridan was locally seen as a stub highway with very little utility, serving the same movements as the Major Deegan Expressway (I-87) and Bronx River Parkway.

[28][29][30] In 2011, the New York City Department of Transportation and the New York City Economic Development Corporation conducted a study of trucks entering and leaving the Hunts Point Cooperative Market, a large food market located near the Sheridan Expressway's south end.

[28][7]: 13  The plan faced opposition rooted in claims of environmental justice from community groups, most notably the Southern Bronx River Watershed Alliance, which proposed an alternative that called for the expressway to be replaced with affordable housing, schools, and a park.

[7]: 13 In 2001, the NYSDOT again started looking at ways to improve I-895, especially at the Bruckner Expressway junction, a source of congestion due to a merge in the southbound/westbound directions.

[36][37] Later the same year, local community groups received a $1.5 million federal grant to study the potential removal of the highway.

[40] The dispute between the local community and the city and state governments led to a stalemate, what the Daily News called a "crossroads" and "a road to nowhere".

[41] The plan was dropped after the Hunts Point Terminal Produce Cooperative threatened to move to New Jersey if I-895 were demolished.

[7]: 48 [42] The decommissioning proposal consisted of two options: retaining the separate West Farms Road parallel to the expressway or combining the two arteries.

The new boulevard would include traffic lights at Jennings, 172nd, and 173rd Streets, with crosswalks that connect the residential area on the current expressway's west side with Starlight Park on its east.

The boulevard would run parallel to West Farms Road, in a manner similar to the first of the city's two proposals for downgrading the highway.

[48] As of 2017[update], the park was only accessible via the East 174th Street bridge that crosses both the expressway and the Bronx River.

The project was expected to improve pedestrian safety and access to both Starlight Park and the Bronx River shoreline.

The NYSDOT immediately announced that work would begin on decommissioning the highway within a week, and that the project would be complete by late 2019.

[46] At the time of the proposal, up to 13,000 trucks per day[47] simply detoured through local streets to get to the market, which elicited complaints from residents.

[46] The state also announced in mid-2019 that it would start construction on the exit ramp to Edgewater Road from southbound NY 895.

[54] Construction on the first phase of the Edgewater Road access project began that year; the work included replacing existing overpasses and building the new ramps.

[56][57] Two other phases included rebuilding portions of the Bruckner Expressway in the vicinity of the NY 895 interchange, to be completed by 2025.