Car enthusiasts are invited to see  a safety demonstration of the new Volvo XC60, which stops itself in under 9 mph if it is approaching another car or obstacle.

The demonstartion will be held from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m., Wednesday, at Palisades Volvo, 55 Route 303, West Nyack.

The car will be unveiled at 6:30 p.m. and the demonstrations will run throughout the event. There will also be a multimedia tour, made up of kiosks, videos and timelines.

The first 25 families will receive a free emergency preparedness kit.

The XC60 will be available for purchase next spring.

New deck panels will be installed on the Tappan Zee Bridge on Sunday night.

Until now, the ovenight work had been done Monday through Saturday.

The work will begins at 10 p.m., resulting in the closure of two right Westchester-bound lanes from milepost 17 to the east deck truss span on the bridge. Another Westchester-bound lane will be shut down at 11 p.m.

Two left Rockland-bound lanes from Exit 9 in Tarrytown to the east abutment will be closed from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.

All lanes will open by 6 a.m.

It’s official: The new five Westchester-bound, two Rockland-bound lane pattern on the Tappan Zee Bridge will be used during the weekday morning rush for the next several weeks.

Ramesh Mehta, the New York State Thruway Authority’s Hudson Valley director, this morning said the two trial runs had been successful and the new lane configuration would be in place until 10 joint repairs in the right Westchester-bound lanes are completed.

The five lanes into Westchester will be in place from 6 to 8:30 a.m., at which time the barrier would be moved back to add a third Rockland-bound lane. In the evening, there will be four lanes into Rockland and three into Westchester.

The change was made this week to relieve traffic jams that stretched back 15 miles into Rockland. Commuters who travel to Westchester in the evening, though, still have to struggle using three lanes and with the raised metal construction plates, their travel times increasingly longer.

Mehta said Rockland-bound back-ups reached only two miles into Westchester this morning.
Traffic into Westchester was heavy and slow but kept moving.

Several elected officials from Rockland have gotten involved in the bridge plate issue. On Tuesday, state Sen. Thomas Morahan demanded changes from Thruway Authority Executive Director Michael Fleischer. That same day, County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef wrote to Mehta calling the conditions on the bridge “simply unacceptable.” Also Tuesday, Legislator Ed Day asked Gov. David Paterson to launch an investigation into the conduct and handling of the construction repair project on the Tappan Zee Bridge by the Thruway Authority.

“It is unacceptable when any state agency, who by virtue of being a separate entity within our government, seemingly believes that they have no compelling need or motivation to act appropriately on behalf of our citizens,” Day wrote in his letter to Paterson.

Read more about this story tomorrow in The Journal News and on LoHud.com.

A fifth Westchester-bound lane will be opened on the Tappan Zee Bridge tomorrow morning to provide immediate relief to frustrated rush-hour commuters, state Sen. Thomas Morahan told The Journal News/LoHud.com today.

Raised steel construction plates on parts of the bridge have caused 15-mile traffic back-ups into Rockland, and more than doubled travel times from early- to mid-morning for thousands of drivers.

Morahan spoke with Michael Fleischer, the head of the state Thruway Authority, who confirmed the change.

“He assured me that the fifth lane will be open tomorrow,” Morahan said.
The extra Westchester-bound lane will be created by moving the median barrier over one lane, thereby reducing the Rockland-bound lanes from three to two. By mid-day, the lane configuration will be changed to four into Rockland and three into Westchester to accommodate northbound commuters returning home during the evening.

The 1.5-inch thick steel plates are expected to remain on the west deck truss on the 3-mile bridge until Thanksgiving as part of joint repairs. The work will then move to the Rockland-bound lanes in December.

Following weeks of morning rush hour traffic jams on the Tappan Zee Bridge caused by raised construction plates, the state Thruway Authority is now considering opening an additional Westchester-bound lane, or five in total.

Currently only four lanes heading into Westchester are open in the early morning, and three in the Rockland-bound direction.

But commuters say that traffic has been unbearable in the past few weeks and are demanding changes. The latest culprit are three 1 1/2-inch thick plates that are being used cover joints on the west deck truss of the bridge.

The joints are being replaced.

Ramesh Mehta, the Thruway Authority’s director for the Hudson Valley, this morning said the agency is in the process of figuring out what kind of traffic issues the change would cause in Westchester. A decision is expected by the end of this week.

Mehta said the new plates have 45-degree angle ramps leading to them, which doesn’t require drivers to slow down. However, drivers have erred on the side of caution, leading to 15-mile back-ups.

Transport of Rockland (TOR) 59, 91 and 92 buses, the Tappan ZEExpress and Coach USA’s Rockland Coaches (Red & Tan) 9W buses tomorrow will detour from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m. to avoid street paving on Main Street in Nyack.

There will be no bus service to Nyack Hospital. Passengers should meet buses on South Franklin Street or on Route 59.

On Saturday, TOR 59, TOR Loop 3 and TOR 93 will detour to avoid the county firemen’s parade in Suffern. The detour will be in effect from noon to 5 p.m.

Passengers should meet TOR 59 and Loop 3 at the intersection of Route 59 at Campbell Road and should meet TOR 93 on Highway 202 at Chestnut Street in Suffern.

A northbound stretch of Thruway near the Spring Valley tolls will be shut down tonight.

Antenna replacement work at the highway-speed toll barrier, located at milepost 24.31, will close northbound lanes beginning at 9:30 p.m. until 6 a.m. tomorrow, the state Thruway Authority said.

A double-lane closure will begin at 9:30 p.m.; all three northbound lanes will be closed at 11:00 p.m.

During the closures, all traffic will be diverted through the Spring Valley Toll Plaza. Passengers cars will not be charged toll.

In case of bad weather, the work will be performed tomorrow night during the same time frame.

Rockland residents can now buy combination NJ Transit rail/bus tickets from any ticket sales location and connect to a new bus shuttle at Secaucus Junction rail station to get to all events at the Meadowlands.

The Secaucus bus link operates for all Meadowlands special events — Jets and Giants football, NJ Nets basketball and Red Bulls soccer games, as well as concerts and major horseracing events. Read more of this entry »