Back in the fall of 2010, the NY State Dept. of Transportation presented the official design proposals for replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge.
The proposal made these points: New public transit is essential for the future. Congestion in the corridor is already significant and will continue to worsen. Only new public transit systems will help improve mobility by affording alternative transportation choices in the future. A replacement bridge for just cars and trucks will not solve the problem and only a bridge that includes public transit can solve the real problem which is moving people from one side of the Hudson to the other. The plan just presented by the New York State Dept. of Transportation—the same people who wrote the 2010 proposal—does not include public transport.
Responding to the current proposal, Rockland County Executive, Scott Vanderhoef, said at the bridge public hearing on Feb 28, “I support mass transit and look forward to future bus transport, and hopefully commuter rail … across the bridge”.
Paul Gallay, the Hudson Riverkeeper, pointed out the state’s plan “shortchanges the public. “People deserve to know whether an on-the-cheap bridge is really preferable to a new bridge with real mass transit or even rehabilitation of the existing bridge, which state officials had, in the past, said could last up to 150 years, cost a billion dollars less and still put a lot of people to work. The bottom line is that Governor Cuomo didn’t do the comparisons, and may have come up with the wrong answer for the region, at a cost of $5.2 billion; that’s not a mistake we can afford to make.”
Other people, including elected officials, pointed out that the proposed bridge without mass transit would be “obsolete from day one.” Perhaps the tunnel plan should be looked into again.
The proposed bridge will tear down many of our neighbors’ homes, place nearby condos in the shadow of a giant bridge and still not solve our traffic problem.
