Representing the Hudson Valley and Upper New York State Telephone Members
Tappan Zee Bridge Construction Plans Move Forward
TARRYTOWN — Adding mass transit to the $5.2 billion replacement for the Tappan Zee Bridge would delay the project at least two years, state Transportation Commissioner Joan McDonald said Wednesday.
Ensuring a specialized bus service or rail line could start with the opening of the planned bridge would add “minimally by two years” to the process with environmental reviews of new stations, complete with parking areas, and the traffic they would bring, McDonald told The Journal News after addressing more than 100 construction industry leaders and others at a luncheon.
With the basic bridge, designed to support buses or rail that could be added later, McDonald said she was confident construction would begin this year.
“So far, we’ve met ... every benchmark we set out for ourselves,” she said after the luncheon of the Construction Industry Council of Westchester & Hudson Valley at DoubleTree Hotel Tarrytown near the Westchester entrance to the Tappan Zee Bridge.
The replacement is planned as two spans about 300 feet north of the existing 56-year-old Hudson River span. It is scheduled to open in 2017.
Many transit advocates and local officials want a mass transit system, most likely a specialized express bus service with its own lanes, to run the day the new bridge opens. Veronica Vanterpool, associate director for the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said community opposition to the bridge without mass transit could delay the project even longer than the two years.
“We are building a bridge for the next hundred years; we should get it right,” Vanterpool said. “Designing the bridge for bus transit on day one doesn’t preclude construction from starting on the bridge. ... We’re not trying to delay or stop the project.”
Construction industry representatives at the meeting stressed the need to begin building the bridge quickly as the region hungers for jobs and frets over how much longer the crucial but ailing bridge will remain safe for the drivers and passengers in the 140,000 vehicles that cross it each day.
“That Tappan Zee Bridge is the heart and soul of this region,” said Ross Pepe, president of the council. “Without it, we’re in big trouble.”
Discussions about what to build in its place, and how to develop the 30-mile transportation core from Suffern to Port Chester, have stretched on more than a decade. But in October, the Obama administration stepped into the process, placing the replacement bridge on the fast track with its plans for the basic bridge. It would feature four lanes plus a breakdown lane in each direction, with a bike and walking path on one span.
McDonald said the first draft of a major study of the replacement bridge’s impacts on the area, called an environmental impact statement, is due Wednesday.
She said the bridge would be built ready to accommodate transit at a later date. Bridge footings, for example, would be strong enough to hold a commuter railroad.
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