OT: New bridge

[RockyMTblue2]

If I remember correctly toll roads lost their appeal after that terrible accident at a toll booth on the Ct Turnpike many years ago

That was the end of the toll booths on 95 I believe. It's a federal road so I don't think Malloy can put up some Jersey Barriers and start collecting real soon.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Do you know why the Tappan Zee was built where it is, across the widest expanse of the Hudson River?

I thought it was to please General Motors and ease flight from any melt down of the nuclear plant. I guess, though, the bridge predated both.

 

[Wbbfan1]

Don't know why USA has not endorsed a Monorail system that could be built along side or above most of the major highways. Won't be too many more years (maybe 10-15) before Hover Cars will be cost effective if there's enough interest.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Don't know why USA has not endorsed a Monorail system that could be built along side or above most of the major highways. Won't be too many more years (maybe 10-15) before Hover Cars will be cost effective if there's enough interest.

Go back and look at the Popular Sciences and Mechanix Illustrated magazines of the late 50s and early 60s. I get a great kick out of Dreamer Billionaires proposing a tube system between Washington,DC and Manhattan. Our infrastructure is crumbling around us. There is no money for new. Heck, the electric car has floundered because of the lack of plug and go stations - cheap stuff. Sun and wind power is good here aand there, but getting a rationale grid to distribute it ... too expensive (of course I know that is all about how you calculate the "true" cost of doing it vs. not doing it). Any moment now this thread will be locked???

 

[triaddukefan]

I believe I meant East Coast. Though they might not have them on all, they have them on some.

NC has never had an interstate tolled.. EVER. Last time I checked... NC was on the East Coast. There is the Triangle Expressway....... a toll road in western Wake county.. .... but its not an interstate. In SC.... Interstate 185 Southern Section is tolled.... but its only about a 10 mile highway on the south side of Greenville.... not a major highway at all. GA never had an interstate toll road..... though they do have a section of Interstate 85 that used to be HOV lanes ... they turned them into express lanes. Though you have the option just to take the free section of the highway. I believe they are doing the same thing to Interstate 75 through the Northern Suburbs.

 

[Fairfield Fan]

If I remember correctly toll roads lost their appeal after that terrible accident at a toll booth on the Ct Turnpike many years ago

Yes, but modern toll booths don't require cars and trucks to actually stop to pay tolls. So the thing that caused the accident wouldn't happen today.

 

[TheObserver]

I thought it was to please General Motors and ease flight from any melt down of the nuclear plant. I guess, though, the bridge predated both.

Not sure what you are referring to concerning GM, but The Tappan Zee Bridge was designed and built before Indian Point 1 was built.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Not sure what you are referring to concerning GM, but The Tappan Zee Bridge was designed and built before Indian Point 1 was built.

Thanks. There was a huge GM plant quite close to the bridge on the eastern side. Closed some time ago. I don't know what came first, the plant or the bridge. I am sure the rail line was at least as vital to the plant as the bridge . While the bridge was deemed a vital bug out transportation means, several years ago the Westchester/Putnam area evacuation plan was found to be very deficient (as I suspect most are).

 

[RockyMTblue2]

Yes, but modern toll booths don't require cars and trucks to actually stop to pay tolls. So the thing that caused the accident wouldn't happen today.

A car can never screw up as it passes through the scan, causing a pile up, with a gasoline truck in the mix??

 

[Fishy]

I thought it was to please General Motors and ease flight from any melt down of the nuclear plant. I guess, though, the bridge predated both.

It was built where it was so that it was as close to the city as possible and yet outside of the radius controlled by the NY/NJ Port Authority. It's about a mile outside of that radius, so New York was in charge of its construction and operation and not the PA.

Basically, politics.

 

[RockyMTblue2]

It was built where it was so that it was as close to the city as possible and yet outside of the radius controlled by the NY/NJ Port Authority. It's about a mile outside of that radius, so New York was in charge of its construction and operation and not the PA.

Basically, politics.

Makes sense. In fairness to the politics outside the circle, if it had been under PA authority the toll would have been $25 by 2002 and the bridge would have collapsed in 2003.

 

[Fishy]

PS Do you know why the Tappan Zee was built where it is, across the widest expanse of the Hudson River? Because that is the closest point to New York that would keep it out of the jurisdiction of the Port Authority, which has control of all crossing points and airports within a 25-mile radius of the Statue of Liberty. The Tappan Zee is slightly farther away. Governor Dewey wanted the revenues from the Tappan Zee to pay for other state roads. That's also why the new span was built on the northern side of the old span, and not the southern side. To keep it out of the clutches of the Port Authority.

It's about 500 yards north of where the PA's radius ends.

It's not where the river is the widest, but it is where the river is probably the least hospitable to bridge-building. The bottom is pure muck there.

Widest part of the river is about 10 miles north of the Tappan Zee in Haverstraw Bay. That's where Henry Hudson landed and figured he had found the Northwest Passage. (A week later, he was in Albany and realized that it wasn't the Northwest Passage and that he wanted to go home.)