Bridges

Governor Andrew Cuomo may have axed plans ten years in the making to build transit across the Tappan Zee Bridge, but hey, at least he promised to consider turning the old structure into a park, right?

As advocates for transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge take to the airwaves, the media are starting to ask questions about the Cuomo administration's ever-shifting and unexplained cost estimates for the project.

The Tri-State Transportation Campaign is looking to enlist car commuters in the fight for transit on the Tappan Zee Bridge.

As part of an application for a $2 billion federal loan to help pay for a replacement Tappan Zee Bridge that would double the width of the current bridge, the Cuomo administration has put forward a new and much-higher estimate of the project's cost: $6 billion. That's $800 million higher than previous press reports had stated, and $1.4 billion more than the state put forward in its draft environmental impact statement. The loan application also suggests that the administration will use toll revenues to repay the feds, meaning potentially huge toll hikes for Tappan Zee drivers without providing any effective transit option as an alternative.

New York State is on the verge of undertaking one of the largest transportation projects in the nation: the replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge. Over the course of 10 years and 280 public meetings, Hudson Valley residents, business owners, elected officials and environmental advocates built a consensus that transit was a vital component of the Tappan Zee Bridge project.

The Manhattan Bridge bicycle path will return to its usual place on the north side of the bridge on March 5, according to a Department of Transportation spokesperson.

The crosswalks will be getting shorter on Delancey Street -- one of the city's deadliest corridors -- thanks to a new safety plan from the Department of Transportation [PDF]. At 14 of 19 crossings between Clinton Street and the Bowery, neckdowns will extend the sidewalk into the street, making the distance across the extremely wide street a bit more manageable. While DOT found ways to add pedestrian space where it could, however, the department rejected options, some of which were very popular, that would interfere with the heavy traffic headed to and from the Williamsburg Bridge.

Time was, the public outreach for the new Tappan Zee Bridge included five different Stakeholders' Advisory Working Groups. Each let interested parties dig deeper into issues like the environmental impact of the bridge or how the new transit service might affect development.

Until last fall, the state's planning for a new Tappan Zee Bridge was a model of public outreach. It included over 280 public meetings and one outreach center open full-time on each side of the bridge.