Bridges

It looks like major bike routes are getting cleared after the season's first snow. This stands in stark contrast to the conditions four years ago, when it took days for bridge and greenway paths to be cleared of snow and ice. What did you see on your way to work this morning?

Before the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge opened in 1964, New Yorkers on foot or bike could travel between Staten Island and Brooklyn by taking a ferry from 69th Street in Bay Ridge to St. George. Since the bridge opened, there are only two times each year when people are allowed to cross it under their own power: the New York City Marathon, held every November, and the Five Boro Bike Tour each May.

This morning, elected officials and community leaders unveiled a slate of pedestrian safety improvements to Delancey Street, long ranked as one of the city's most dangerous places to walk.

Now that the Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam county executives have signaled their support for a new Tappan Zee Bridge, the Cuomo administration is again pushing the project forward at a furious pace. So fast, in fact, that it may violate federal rules.

County executives from Westchester, Rockland, and Putnam counties announced their support for Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Tappan Zee Bridge project yesterday, clearing the way for the project to seek federal funding. The executives, who had withheld support until now, received two concessions: A guarantee of rush hour bus lanes on the new bridge, and the creation of a Regional Transit Task Force, which will report back in one year with recommendations for transit connections to the bridge. They also announced the creation of a working group that would focus on project financing and bridge tolls.

Bloomberg reports today that Governor Andrew Cuomo has charged the Thruway Authority with appointing a panel to  "find alternatives, revenue generators and cost reductions that reduce the potential toll increases" on the replacement Tappan Zee Bridge. The Cuomo administration revealed late last week that the superwide, transit-less replacement bridge -- estimated to cost $5.2 billion -- would require nearly tripling current toll rates to cover its costs. Apparently the reaction to news of $14 cash tolls and daily commuter tolls approaching $9 is causing some kind of reappraisal from the governor.

Council Members Brad Lander, Margaret Chin, and Stephen Levin -- along with advocates from Transportation Alternatives -- stood at the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge this morning and put forth a proposal to expand the bridge's increasingly popular and exceedingly cramped bike and pedestrian path.

Well, this explains why the Cuomo administration has been so reluctant to discuss how to pay for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. At a public meeting last night, Secretary to the Governor Larry Schwartz told the crowd that cash tolls would rise to $14 on the replacement bridge, with a slight discount for E-ZPass holders ($13.40) and a deeper discount for regular commuters ($8.40), the Journal News reports.