Unions.
It was their last chance. They’d already tried Tappan Aye through Tappan Why.
I’ll show myself out...
To read later. The span is three miles. In a VW bug it was scary
Tappan - the leader in bridges since 1881.
Great article, hat-tip NPR. They still need to be de-funded from the taxpayers.
But, to the tappen zee:
Dewey Cheatem and Howe.
Maybe because that’s the most shallow water area around?
...The site of the bridge, at the Hudson River’s second-widest point, added to construction costs. The site was chosen to be as close as possible to New York City, while staying out of the 25-mile (40 km) range of the Port Authority’s influence, thus ensuring that revenue from collected tolls would go to the newly created New York State Thruway Authority, and not the Port Authority..
The notion that it had to be built in the same spot because “towns have grown up around it” is nonsense. The population of Nyack, the largest town “around it” is only 12% larger than it was when the road was first built. The real issue is that building the highway at the outlet of the “Tappan Zee (Sea)” would mean impossibly long environmental studies... decades... that would probably end up costing as many billions as were wasted rebuilding the bridge where it stands.
It will always be the Tappan Zee Bridge to me, instead of what it was renamed, which I will not mention. And I won’t mention who renamed it. Same goes for the Triboro Bridge.
For those intereste, the quick version is that the governor directed that the bridge be built the bridge at a wide part of the river further north so that the toll revenue would go to the State of New York rather than the City of New York Port Authority.
Loooong story short...”- if he had let the bridge be built further south, where the river narrows, it would have been in Port Authority territory and the Port Authority, not the state of New York, would have gotten the revenue.”
Now you don’t have to give npr a click.
It was built in the location it is because it had to be outside of the Port Authority, which controls the George Washington Bridge (also a Hudson River crossing) so that NYS could get the toll revenue and not the Port Authority. Also, it was built next to Tarrytown, NY so that it was a convenient drive for the Rockefeller family who has a massive swath of property in that area known as Pocantico. Governor Rockefeller could not possibly have been inconvenienced while driving to Albany by driving too far from his mansion.
And that fascist bastard Andrew Cuomo forced the state legislature to change the name of the bridge to the Mario Cuomo Bridge. New York governors have had a history of being extremely arrogant and corrupt.
Oh, what was that song we used to sing?
The river is wide I can’t get o’er.
Neither have I the wings to fly.
So the Democrats will take our money.
And do something stupid while they pocket their bribe money
Yeah, yeah.
I love all the New York bridges. All we have to do is blow them and we can keep millions of liberal freaks out of circulation.
A bus filled with women claimed the bridge made them feel uncomfortable. Time to change the name from St. Marios bridge back to the Tappan Zee.
Having the NY State Thruway go up to Albany and Montreal on the west side of the Hudson River was much easier to build (and have the Feds chip in other states' money for it) than have New York build a highway on the east side and cross over at a point further north than the Tappan Zee.
New York was looking at it to connect upstate New York to New York city and why should that commerce share revenue with New Jersey?
The Port Authority jurisdiction is not about a 25 mile circle or other nonsense that the article mentions but about what state the bridge connects on both sides:
-Tappan Zee Bridge - Tarrytown NY to Nyack NY; New York owned.
-Verrazzano Bridge (in sight of the Statue of Liberty) -Staten Island NY to Brooklyn NY; New York owned.
-George Washington Bridge - Fort Lee NJ to Manhattan NY; Port Authority owned.
Current New York Governor, Nursing Home Killer (NHK) Cuomo, even tried to have the Port Authority take ownership of the failing structure because New York never realized the toll revenue they expected since upstate New York died as a manufacturing and agriculture region. Say what you want about NJ Governor Chris Christie but he shot that insanely criminal idea down.
Connected contractors and politicians make more money that way.
Ah.
The Crappan Zee bridge.
Built originally with substandard material and replaced with substandard material.
Drove it in the 90’s in a Geo Metro.
There was a hole in the decking in one lane that went through to give a view of the water below.
The solution, bolt a flat plate over it but have the bolt studs on top of the decking with the nuts and stud where your tires go.
That was fun to see at the time.
Thomas E. Dewey - that last Presidential candidate (of a major party) with facial hair (a mustache)
Who was the last Presidential candidate with a beard?
Who was the last President with facial hair?
Who was the last President with a beard?
Who was the last bald President?
Thanks for the article. Interesting to read. Now just leave the bridge name alone.