A Bridge Too Far?

UPDATE, March 25, 2014:  As I've warned here and elsewhere for two years, the new Tappan Zee Bridge, one of the nation's biggest construction projects (and I can watch it from my window right now) is a high-priced boondoggle.  The NYT has poorly covered it in the past (see below) but is out with another piece just now that takes an appropriately skeptical look at promises the toll hikes will be kept in check.  That was absurd from the start but state officials misled locals, who bought it.  And will be forced to "buy it" for decades.  


Earlier:  NYT with a major piece and online visuals (the first in a series) on one of America's biggest construction projects--and I can watch it, right from my front yard at the top of the hill overlooking the Hudson River.

It's the $4 billion replacement for one of longest bridges anywhere, at over three miles, the Tappan Zee, which joins Rockland to Westchester counties just north of New York City (my photo at left).  It's at virtually the widest part of the Hudson and why it was built in the mid-1950s here--well, it's a long, sordid story but we'll leave that for now.

What's not in the rah-rah Times story are several key points, including a promised massive toll hike (doubling the current rate) to pay for the bridge, which was minimized in the steamrolling for the new structure.  Plus: While the bridge aims to sharply reduce traffic congestion it actually will offer not a single new lane of rush-hour access for cars.  Right now the seven lanes on the bridge are adjusted so you get four lanes at rush-hour in either direction.  The new bridge will provide eight lanes--always divided in half.

And most of the traffic congestion is caused not by ultra-bridge traffic but the tightening of Thruway lanes on both sides.  And the congestion, even so, had already been eased over the past decade by several measures, including EZ-Pass.  Take my word for it--I commuted nearly every day from 2000-2009.

There are a few benefits (including a bike/walking "lane" and a lane for the relatively few buses that use the span) but commuters will likely be bitching about continued tie-ups--at twice the toll.  Love this from the Times' story:  "Bottlenecks may not end entirely."  Ya think? 

Early on, when residents questioned why, after all these years, a new bridge would not include rail service from train-poor Rockland to train-rich Westchester, the state dangled the possibility of future tracks attached to the bridge but that's nearly a pipedream at this point--with staggering costs if ever attempted.

The Times also repeats the (likely) urban legend that when the bridge was built it was expected to last only 50 years.  We heard that up here from the press and bridge advocates for years but when critics pressed for an actual source none could be found.  Perhaps they've found it since but I'd like to see it.

Also minimized by officials, and the Times,  were the certain disruptions in existing traffic from the many years of construction to come (by the way, they also have to tear down the current bridge).   Already commuters are fuming about the closing--for the duration--of the key access lane to the bridge on the Tarrytown side, which has caused delays of up to half an hour or more for the daily evening commute.  And work has barely begun.  State officials had pooh-poohed that first major disruption. Our local paper, the Journal News, observed: "Like so many other aspects of the project, the planned impacts didn’t match the reality."

Well, at least the Times corrected a rather major error in an earlier version of the story--getting the name of where the bridge starts/ends in Rockland.   -- G.M.