3alarmer 

.
...and I wonder how Donald Trump is going to claim credit for it ?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/24/n...T.nav=top-news

dgodave

The engineers graduated Trump "University"?

noisebeam

What a terrible deal. He should tear it down and renegotiate a better one.

3alarmer 

.
...clearly, a new deal is called for on the financing. New Jersey ought to pay for it.

icedmocha 

What's happening to the old Tap? I've been enjoying not paying the toll.

3alarmer 

...I think they're going to scrap it as outdated/unsafe.

dgodave

Trump has a bridge he wants to sell you.

FBinNY 

Yes, the old span was not repairable because of the condition of the multiple piers that compromise the bulk of the span. They built a new bridge because it was cheaper than repairing and/or enlarging the old one.

BTW - there's a major plus here for bicyclists. We now have a crossing roughly half way between the George Washington and Bear Mountain bridges. That opens up Hudson River loops to a much larger segment of riders, who might not be able to do centuries. Plus it makes the parks on the west side of the river much closer to Westchester residents like myself. Nyack is now about 20 miles from home, vs 45 or so.

cb400bill

Not Political or Religious. Thread moved from P+R to Northeast regional forum.

roadiejorge 

I'm excited about crossing the Tappan Zee though in all honesty I've never been a fan on riding on that side of the Hudson but it will be cool being able to do a loop across it then back to NJ on the GWB.

FBinNY 

The benefits of this new link are different from your perspective than mine. You're close to the GW bridge, and think of he east side of the river as being NYC and the dense lower burbs, ie. Yonkers.

But for folks like me, it means no 10+ mile detour through NYC to cross the river, plus the few miles to get out of the dense area.

It works the other way, folks in Northern NJ, or Rockland and Westchester could now do a beautiful Bear Mountain loop crossing the Tappan Zee and Bear Mountain bridges.

Or you can start in Northern NJ, cross at Tarrytown, than a short zig and zag and pick up the North County Trailway, or explore the dozens of loops around the reservoirs.

For just about anyone north of the GW Bridge this new link is a Zee change in cycling opportunities.

vol

Nice hi-viz vests.

autonomy

Been a while since I've driven down that way (before the construction started), but driving over the TZ always freaked me out a bit. A couple of years ago I asked my friend, who inspects bridges for a living, what he thinks of the bridge. His answer was "I'd say I wouldn't drive over it".

Glad to hear the replacement is finished. Maybe one of these years we'll make it down to Ocean City, MD again.

FBinNY 

A good example of worrying about the wrong thing.

First of all, a sudden major collapse was unlikely, since the concern was about the low level pier supported sections, not the main span. So the worst case would have been a failure of one of those sections, probably in the form of local buckling rather than a collapse.

Then consider the odds of ANY bridge collapse within the short window of your being on it. Even if you commuted across it daily as countless people do, it's still only a few minutes out of 24 hours. For the rest it's a few minutes out of weeks, months or years.

The reality is that vastly more people die in traffic accidents on bridges than from ant kind of bridge failure. The only people that need to worry about bridge safety are those in vehicles that may be heavy enough to cause a failure. For everyone else it's about odds, and the odds are in their favor.

autonomy

I didn't say I was worried about it and I never went out of my way to avoid it. Just a "damn, this bridge is so deteriorated, I hope nothing happens" type-of-thought while driving over it. Thing is, freak accidents happen (see Skagit River Bridge collapse)

FBinNY 

I was responding to your post in it's entirety. including your feelings of twitchiness, and your friend's "I wouldn't..." comment.

Bridges do collapse, sometimes purely from neglect and poor maintenance, more rarely from poor design, but most failures, including those where the bridge has underlying problems, are due to a specific outside cause, ie. a truck taking out a structural element.

But my point wasn't about bridge safety, it was purely a commentary about odds and the risk assessments we make every day. If we take being struck by lightning as a benchmark of odds, being injured in a bridge collapse is on the safe side of that.

berner

I'm reading a book now about the building of the Erie Canal and the arm wrestling that went on between the warring parties. I would guess the new bridge would be a repeat of history.

FBinNY 

I can see how the new bridge would have been controversial when it was proposed. And in fact it was, with factions pushing for refurbishing the old span, replacing it with a tunnel to beautify the river, and with the details of design and amenities such as a rail link, and the bike/pedestrian lanes.

But like it or not, the new bridge is built, and the time for debate is well behind us.

I, for one, has misgivings back then, but am overall pleased with the final product, and the process which went much smoother than anyone experienced with state projects would have predicted.

BTW - I'm looking forward to a Bear Mtn. Bridge ride, including stretches of Seven lakes Parkway, with a return via the bridge to cut off the added 25+ miles on boring, urban roads that going down to the GW would add.

Though I no longer ride with clubs, I think they should schedule a series of Hands Across the Zee rideswhere clubs on either side could introduce their cross river counterparts to the best of their rides.

Steve B.

There's going to be some creative thinking required to figure out how to get on and off the bike path on the Tarrytown side. The Rt 9 corridor is a horrid section to bike, as the Thruway & bridge location is smack in a busy traffic area. I'm not clear how they intend to do this and make it viable for families on bikes.

dendawg

Biking the east side of the river in that area is a nightmare in that area. It would be great if there were a wide shoulder on 9, but there isn't any shoulder in many places

roadiejorge 

Of course, I was only making an observation as it relates only to my usual cycling routes. There will definitely be more opportunities to explore with this new link for sure.

wilfried

True enough. If you're going to worry about a bridge collapse, you probably shouldn't be in a car in the first place. You're orders of magnitude more likely to die in an ordinary car crash. It's like people who say, "I'm afraid of flying. I'll drive instead." Human beings are piss poor at risk assessment.

njlonghorn

Not so fast. The new westbound lanes opened. The new eastbound lanes overlap with the old westbound lanes. Thus, until the old westbound lanes are torn down, they can't finish the new eastbound lanes. From the looks of it, they are mostly done with the eastbound construction except for the small sections at each end that haven't even been started yet.

Steve B.

Vague information on the official website as to final completion, which also means the bike path, for "2018"