Something Else happens when First Span Opens

Did a double-take the other day when I saw this carpet design again while waiting for an appointment. While the pattern is the same throughout the first floor, the bridge-symmetry doesn’t always appear.

After I wrote that the westbound span’s opening seems behind schedule, I was reminded this is a construction project. Much as driving on it will be a significant marker, this will remain an active site until it’s completed.

Something else (besides it accommodating traffic) will happen when the first span opens. Can you guess what it is? Tell you before the end of the week.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2017

You say One Month, & They say a Different One

Winding down to the finish line yet still behind schedule for the first span to open. Maybe no one really knows as there’s still much work to be done before rubber meets roadway on the new Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge.

Weather may be a factor in the delay; however, a nearly-six-month delay is a bit much. “If the Thruway Authority doesn’t have the keys to the new bridge by March or April of 2018, then the contractor will be charged $100,000 per day for each day beyond that,” one source said in 2014. That’s the 62-month mark.

With eight or nine months until next spring, it seems unlikely both spans will open by then. “The bridge will open sometime in 2018,” other reporters and I hear and continue writing. No one is sure when.

You may be able to see some of the new westbound span’s lighting fixtures; not so easy with the upper main span tower’s aesthetic lighting fixtures. Periodic testing is on the way.

There’s also progress at the new maintenance facility in Tarrytown this week and footing and retaining wall construction — that includes galvanized steel sheets — for the new police facility on the south side of the Thruway.

About three-quarters of the eastbound span’s 96 stay cables have been installed, and yes! the eastbound span now has one of its eventual eight overhead gantries.

Another reporter said, “The Tappan Zee Constructors, the group of contractors tasked with designing and building the bridge, also need to stripe the driving surface.”

The consortium is Tappan Zee Constructors not the Tappan Zee Constructors. Further, Tappan Zee Constructors needs not need to stripe the driving surface. No editing prior to publication?

First photo courtesy of New York State Thruway Authority.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2017

Parts of the Tappan Zee will be Repurposed

Tappan Zee Bridge/Courtesy of Severin St. Martin

At Monday’s Thruway Authority Board of Directors meeting, members approved parts of the Tappan Zee Bridge for state and local municipalities.

One hundred thirty-three deck panels and two moveable barrier machines will be sent to nearly 12 state and local municipalities.

Eight local munis and the New York State Department of Transportation (NYSDOT) asked for desk panels, valued at nearly $3 million including removal and delivery.

How about the deck panels we drive across each day? Each is approximately 13 feet wide wide by 50 feet long, 8.25 inches thick and approximately between 75,500-86,500 pounds.

Want to know more about the bridge that will soon be gone? Read about it here.

As for the moveable barrier system, it will head to the New York City Department of Transportation. Full press release with details is here.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2017

South Nyack Residents concerned about Path

It’s a little past the date for when the first span was to open. A little past. No one’s been counting months? Time marches on, they say. No one is more aware of this than residents of South Nyack — specifically, the group Preserve South Nyack — because the picture above will become the picture below (rendering by landscape architect Kathryn Wolf).

Check out the full story in the July 13, 2017, issue of the Rockland County Times.

I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2017

What to do in Traffic besides Honk the Horn

It happened a few days ago. Not sure why cars were slowing down to a crawl for no reason — no trucks to blame — yet the main span was choking with vehicles. Time to capture the sky through familiar metal as soon it will be gone.

Talk at the facility where mom’s recuperating from a broken leg is often about how the new bridge will help traffic. Or won’t.Several people have relatives who visit from Rockland, and two nurses who live there say it will be a big mess of three lanes into four and then back into three.

This is another view I’ll miss. I’d like to know what you think.

Copyright © Janie Rosman and Kaleidoscope Eyes 2017