Milestone for New NY Bridge: 8 Main Span Towers Topped Off

NYACK, NY — The New NY Bridge has reached a major milestone with the topping off of the eight main span towers and with the final concrete pour completed this week.

The bridge is on track to open in 2018 and on budget at $3.98 billion, said Gov. Andrew Cuomo at a press conference standing on the unfinished roadbed above the Hudson River Tuesday morning.

Cuomo also inspected the project site, including the tower’s construction, stay cable installation, structural steel placement, road deck installation and other key aspects.

In the press conference, Cuomo thanked Rep. Nita Lowey for getting federal funding that made the project possible. He pointed out that for 20 years there were meetings and discussions about fixing the aging, increasingly dangerous TZB, which is crossed by more than 50 million vehicles a year.

"Every time I went over the metal plates, every time I heard those plates shake I thought that's not the way it's supposed to be, why can't we get it done?" Cuomo said. "And that went on for many, many years. Now you see the new bridge rising from almost nothing....when you reject the naysayers, when you find the confidence and the commonality, when you take all that negative energy and turn it into positive energy there is nothing you can't do."

The New NY Bridge project is recognized across the nation for its iconic design, including by President Barrack Obama, who visited it in 2014 and called for more investment in the nation's infrastructure.

New NY Bridge milestones include:

• Towers: The 419-foot towers stand at a 5-degree angle and are the most iconic feature of the new bridge. They are 100 feet higher than the top of the current Tappan Zee Bridge and feature a sleek, chamfered design. All eight towers on the westbound and eastbound spans will be completed this week with the final concrete pour.
• Support Structures: Approximately 90 percent of support structures have been completed, including the fabrication and placement of 126 steel girder assemblies. Fourteen steel girder sections will be installed on the eastbound span starting next year.
• Piles: The last pile was recently driven into the Hudson River, and more than 1,000 piles have been installed to date. The steel structures serve as the foundations for the new bridge. If laid end-to-end, the piles would stretch for more than 50 miles.
• Roadway: More than 3,000 road panels, each 12 feet long, ranging between 22 and 45 feet wide and nearly 11 inches thick, have been installed. This accounts for 3.4 miles of road deck for the approaches of the bridge.
• Structural Steel: More than 220 million pounds of steel will be installed, and the project is using more than 300,000 cubic yards of concrete – enough to build a sidewalk from the project site to Key West, Florida. The project’s floating batch plants have produced more than 200,000 cubic yards of concrete to date.
• Cables: More than one-third of the 192 stay cables have been fully anchored and tensioned on the main span. If laid end-to-end, the cables would stretch 14 miles. When completed, they will total 700 miles of metal strands.
• Super Crane: The I Lift NY super crane has been hard at work setting steel. The super crane is capable of lifting the equivalent of 12 Statues of Liberty at once and will help with the demolition of the existing Tappan Zee Bridge.

The twin-span crossing is expected to cost $3.98 billion. It is scheduled to open in 2018, replacing the six-decades-old Tappan Zee Bridge, which is used by an average of 140,000 vehicles every day.

Connecting Westchester and Rockland counties and serving as the main conduit between upstate and the New York City metropolitan region, the 3.1-mile bridge will include eight general traffic lanes, four breakdown and emergency lanes, space for future bus rapid transit and commuter rail, a bicycle and walking path with six unique viewing areas, cashless tolling and energy-efficient LED lighting.

The state-of-the-art bridge is designed not to need any major structural repairs for at least 100 years.

“We are making incredible progress on one of the largest and safest construction projects in the country," Tappan Zee Constructors President & Project Executive Terry Towle said in a press release from the governor's office. "This is an exceptionally challenging project. Everything is being done on a huge scale, under extreme conditions, and on tight timeframes. I am proud of the tremendous team we have working day and night keeping this project on track. Together we are building an iconic bridge that will serve this community for generations.”

The New York State Thruway Authority is the owner of the New NY Bridge project; Tappan Zee Constructors is the consortium designing and building it.

SEE:

• President Obama: Rebuilding Nation’s Infrastructure Will Mean More Jobs
• Tappan Zee Bridge Featured on Cover of President Obama's Proposed 2016 Budget

Images via New NY Bridge, Gov. Cuomo's Office