“I believe there is a case for Federal support for strengthening this bridge”
It is all commuter/local traffic — New York’s responsibility. This is true for all of the bridges in the NYC area — only a tiny percentage of the traffic is interstate.
The Federal government should put in a highway that bypasses NYC’s local traffic, a “wormhole” that connects central NJ to central CT, and has no exits near NYC.
See # 22 for the Tappan Zee issue.
We were fortunate enough in NJ to have Governor Christie shut down a thrid tunnel project under the Hudson River because the need simply didn’t exist anymore. It was supposed to be a gift to labor unions, but when traffic was analyzed, and it was revealed just how many jobs the NYC metro area had lost anyway (leading to greatly-reduced traffic), the supporters were reduced to insisting the third tunnel be built because someone might want to SEE A BROADWAY SHOW. Shortly after that oral diahrrea, the project was killed.