Manhattan Bridge To Undergo More Repairs

The Manhattan Bridge has been plagued with problems since it was constructed 100 years ago... and the ol' gal still isn't perfect after all this time. The NY Times reports that a $150 million project will soon be underway to replace all of the vertical suspension cables on the bridge, causing disruptions in weekend subway service (B, D, N and Q lines), closing the bikeway and even shutting down some traffic lanes... for the next four years. (The cyclists will have to share a pedestrian walkway.)

This repair work is the final phase in a three-decade rebuilding project, and will begin early next year and end in 2013. Once the work is done, the chief engineer in the project tells the site, "virtually every part of the bridge will have been replaced, except its towers, the main cables and the trusses that support them."

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By Jen Carlson in News on October 30, 2009 10:50 AM

Comments [rss]

properslang

Sharing the pedestrian walkway isn't that bad. It's better than having a Class 2 bike lane riding with the autos. You just need to be more careful around pedestrians.

@rlhbomb I'd like to see a cost comparison of maintenance vs building a new bridge. Building one would effect motorists, cyclists, pedestrians and residents/land owners for a long time before the construction was complete. Sounds like a public project from the days of Robert Moses, rife with eminent domain and other issues that his projects created.

rlhbomb

So instead of building a new bridge they continue to throw good money after bad and "fix" the existing bridge. Construction and infrastructure projects are not about repairing the problem. They are about making contractors rich by extending the repair process as long as possible. Why cure the patient when we can get him hooked on medication and procedures that he will have to pay for the rest of his life.

jibbly

Ugh, as if those lines weren't bad enough on the weekends and late nights.

ilovejapgirls

gee, i guess it's harder & more expensive switching the middle section for train tracks and the outer for cars than infinite years of closing/reconstructions/repairs. America, land of wasting money.

wac0202

resa and too tall -

not that i like it (especially the stairs part) but it just means taking south side instead of north and sharing with peds, which we already do....right now south is most underused real estate in ny

CR

yeah, except that the south side has that dangerous access in manhattan, and the unavoidable stairs in brooklyn...

wac0202

agreed, not looking forward to those, and not ideal, just responding that it isn't as if all access is shut off to bikes. believe me, i'm not thrilled, it's my daily route, but what the hell do I know about work that needs to be done on bridges.

resa

Good, fix the bridges. I'll just stop riding my bike to Brooklyn.

Duffy

Considering what happened on the SF Bay Bridge this week, I think replacing suspension cables might be a good thing sooner rather than later. However whenever train service is diverted from the bridge, it ads another 20 minutes on trips to and from BK that now have to snake through lower Manhattan and the tunnel. It'd be nice if they could manage to keep at least one side of tracks operable.

longacre

Also, the Manhattan Bridge is almost 30 years older than the Bay Bridge.

TooTallJeff

The bike lane would be closed for 4 years or only on the weekends for the next 4 years? That would be a travesty. They would have to dedicate a lane to bikes on the Brooklyn Bridge if that's the case.

Neverhaditsogood

Bridge does appear to be in a state of disrepair. The neighborhood, however, appears to be in better shape than the last time I was there.