A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Tappan Zee Bridge By Iva Dixit The collective hum of rush-‐hour traffic on the Tappan Zee Bridge is loudly interrupted by the fierce screech of brakes. Drivers, with families in tow, alight from their cars to crowd along the sides, jostling to get a clear view at the construction in the middle of the water (a phenomenon that distinctly un-‐amused traffic authorities call ‘rubbernecking’). Massive loads from towering cranes swing ominously over the Hudson River. Clusters of white workboats whirr noisily through the water, pushing along giant orange barges laden with maritime construction machinery. This is the scene of the most expensive public construction project ever undertaken in the history of New York: the three billion-‐dollar replacement of the Tappan Zee Bridge, commissioned by Governor Andrew Cuomo’s administration. The rubberneckers’ curiosity is not entirely warranted, given the possibility that these same vehicles that commute across the bridge everyday and pay $5 as toll, might be the ones inadvertently bearing the cost of the billions required to replace it. Spanning one of the widest parts of the Hudson River, the 3.1 mile long Tappan Zee Bridge opened on December 15, 1955, at a cost of $80.8 million ($668 million when adjusted for inflation today). One of New York (and America’s) busiest roadways, connecting Rockland and Westchester Counties, it is one of the major routes for passenger cars and commercial trucks alike, joining New York with New England, allowing vehicles to skirt New York’s gridlock. Of the 170,000 vehicles that cross the bridge per day (compared for the original capacity of 38,00 for which it was built), few are aware of the dogged political history behind its odd choice of location at Tarrytown, the second widest section of the Hudson after Haverstraw Bay. Named after the after the Tappan Indian tribe and the Dutch word for “sea”, the bridge was the result of a 1950s political feud between Governor Thomas Dewey and the Port Authority. The latter was building a bridge of its own near Dobbs Ferry, across the border of New Jersey, a site within the 25-‐mile radius around the Statue of Liberty that defined its area of operation. Dewey was adamant against having to share toll revenue with New Jersey, wanting to reserve it exclusively to finance the Thruway. This spurred his decision to build the bridge as far south on the Hudson, to ensure it well outside the jurisdiction of the Port Authority. Decried by one of its own engineers as ‘one of the ugliest bridges in the East’, the bridge’s design awkwardly combines a large cantilever (the ninth largest in the world) to give leeway to ships moving in the east side of the Hudson, with a mile-‐long flat roadway atop concrete piers. Originally built to last 50 healthy years, in recent years, it has garnered notoriety for shedding chunks of concrete with such alarming regularity that the water can
be seen in from the holes in the roadbed. The bridge was constructed in a way that its foundations floated in the Hudson River, employing a new, untested technology that saved the Thruway Authority millions in construction costs. While the buoyancy reduced the number of deep piles that needed to be drilled down to the bedrock, there was no guarantee of their durability to withstand the effects in case of a major seismic event. In April 2000, an engineering firm Vollmer Associates released a comprehensive three year long study of the Tappan Zee Bridge and the I-‐287 corridor that listed a series of structural issues of the bridge that were in need of dire repair. The 6-‐inch concrete deck continuing on from 1955 needed to be upgraded to present -‐day 10-‐inch standards. The reserve strength of the bridge was weakened by the increased traffic, making its already structurally deficient foundation further prone to seismic activity. (The report estimated that an earthquake registering between M5.0 and M6.0 could cause serious damage to the bridge, particularly on the causeway.) According to a 2008 Environmental Impact Study, all rehabilitation options would involve substantial modification to strengthen the structure; similar in scale to the effort required to construct a new bridge. All eight of the bridge’s floating foundations would need to be replaced, and the piers and steelwork would need to be strengthened. For the rehabilitation to be successful, nearly 80 percent of the bridge would have to be rebuilt, with the addition of a new supporting partner structure. The same EIS estimated the cost of rehabilitation at $1.3 billion, nearly identical to the cost of replacement. However, rehabilitation would only improve the Tappan Zee’s structural condition and reduce short-‐term maintenance requirements, without addressing the bridge’s lack of redundancy. Moreover, it neither increased the bridge’s vehicular capacity nor serve mass transit needs. Instead, both the Vollmer study and the EIS recommended a complete replacement of the existing span with a new eight-‐lane bridge. To accommodate the estimated growth in reverse commuting, the bridge would have four permanent lanes in each direction. Structurally deficient and vulnerable to seismic activity, its wooden pilings bored into by shipworms and stretched far beyond its estimated lifespan, the Tappan Zee Bridge had been the talking point for nine governors, nearly a hundred million dollars in studies and no actual construction. It wasn’t until 2011 that Governor Andrew Cuomo fast-‐tracked the project, with construction slated to begin in two years. “We will finally build a new the Tappan Zee Bridge — because 15 years of planning is too long,” said Cuomo in his 2012 State of the State address, presenting it as a modern-‐day Erie Canal that would bring a huge upsurge of jobs in the Tarrytown and Nyack area. The replacement was to be known as the New NY Bridge, with eight lanes for general traffic, four emergency lanes and one commuter bus lane, with bike and pedestrian paths added. The Thruway Authority remained confident that it could raise finances through a combination of federal loans from the Obama administration and the sale of private bonds backed by increased tolls. The winning bid for $3.1 billion came from a consortium of
construction companies: Fluor Enterprises, Inc., American Bridge Company, Granite Construction Northeast, Inc. and Traylor Bros., Inc., collectively known as the Tappan Zee Constructors. Construction on the bridge continues, but Cuomo’s grand undertaking has encountered a financial quandary which, if not sorted out, could transfer the increasing costs of the 3-‐ billion project onto the taxpayers of New York State, with the possibility of tolls rising as high as $14 for a one-‐way. Cuomo’s application for a loan under the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program originally sought to cover 49 percent of the total costs. However, at a Senate hearing in July 2013, after testifying before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works, US Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx said that the Thruway Authority could only expect the maximum of $1.3 billion, reducing the original request down to 33 percent of the cost. To qualify for a loan under the TIFIA program, the creditworthiness of the applying institution is subject to review. In July 2012, a report released by the State Budget Crisis Task Force co-‐chaired by former Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch and former Federal Reserve Chair Paul Volcker, expressed serious doubts about the credit-‐ worthiness of the Thruway Authority to be able to fund the project. Since then, the rising debt accumulated by the Thruway Authority has already earned it a ‘negative’ rating by Standard&Poor, the credit rating agency.
While the Thruway Authority remains distinctly mum on the subject, the possibility remains that it might have to fund the bridge through conventional loans at higher interest
rates. For the average driver on the Interstate 287, this could imply increased bridge and statewide Thruway tolls.
In a report titled ‘A Bridge Too Far’, the founding Trustee of Tri-‐State Transportation Campaign and a transportation policy analyst, Charles Komanoff, predicted the inevitability of toll increases, one that follows a peculiar growth trajectory. “The lower the growth, the fewer the trips in future years, and, hence, the higher the toll per trip to pay off the debt service. However, there will be toll hikes to pay for the rebuild. The greater the increases, the more that trip volumes will shrink below their natural trajectory. This will require further toll increases to make up for the lower volume.” Unaware of the financial ambiguity surrounding it, the men driving the cranes on the Hudson go on drilling into the Tappan Zee’s pillars. In the distinct absence of a clarification by the Thruway Authority on the subject of toll increases, the bridge, quite like its foundations, continues to lie suspended amidst a cloud of indecision.