Fifth lane experiment on TZ Bridge declared a success; will be used for a few weeks
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- October
- 24
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.
This entry was posted
on Friday, October 24th, 2008 at 11:51 am by Khurram Saeed.
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I don’t think it’s fair to make our side of the Tappen Zee Bridge going west 2 lanes. It’s a night mare for us. Why should we have to pay? It’s fine to try it out for a day or two, but it’s not fair to do it for many more weeks. A half hour commmute took me an hour and 15 minites. Maybe they should consider 5 lanes coming east into Westchester and 4 lanes going west into rockland when building a new bridge. This will ease the traffic congestion for all. I think you need show type of happy medium. So next week we really need our three lanes going into Rockland back. Thank you.
The lane change was not a “success” for the 3900 commuters who cross from Rockland to Westchester in the morning. The Thruway Authority just moved the traffic problem from one side of the bridge to the other. Two lanes, incorporating a merge from both directions does not work. At the very least, the moving barrier should begin restoring the third lane one-half hour earlier. This would equalize the backup for commuters on both sides of the bridge and share the misery more evenly.