Revised West Thames Pedestrian Bridge Inches Forward

Rumor has it, that one day, denizens of Battery Park City will be able to traverse the wild thoroughfare called West Street in an elevated, covered contraption called the West Thames Pedestrian Bridge, a mystical space where citizens of the City of New York will find 240-feet of safety from the crush of motorized vehicles. But that day still awaits in some far off future, for the powers that be in Lower Manhattan can not agree on one damn thing.

Actually, they've agreed on a few things—and one should hope, since this bridge has been in the works for nearly a decade. Most recently, according to the Broadsheet Daily, the local community board signed off on a revised design for the bridge, created by WXY Architecture, that removes the canopies from the staircases at either end of the bridge. The glass-walled bridge itself, supported by a lenticular truss, will still be covered, but the stairs will be open, with a snow-melting system in place for the colder weather. Additionally, there will now be single support points, rather than double (compare in the slider above), to make the structure appear lighter.

Since the bridge will sit on city-owned property, the City's Public Design Commission still needs to sign off on the change, but the Commission first proposed removing the canopies, so that shouldn't be a problem. The chair of the community board's Battery Park City Committee said, "this whole project seems finally to be becoming a reality," and that the design should be approved next month.

This is just fine and dandy, but there is still the question of who will pay for cost overruns if the project exceeds its $27M budget, and when exactly this will actually be built. Previous reports put a completion date sometime in 2016, but a spokesperson for the Economic Development Corporation told the Broadsheet that "a construction timeline won't be identified until after the design process is complete."
· Long-Delayed Plan for West Thames Bridge Moves Ahead [Broadsheet]
· All West Thames Pedestrian Bridge coverage [Curbed]