It isn’t only New York’s subway and rail tunnels that need some love, the city’s bridges are also in need of repair. A new report by State Comptroller Thomas Di Napoli finds that 76 percent of bridges in New York City are functionally obsolete and don’t meet current design standards for the amount of traffic they carry, meaning they have shoulder or lane widths inadequate to current standards, low clearance, or low load-carrying capacity.
(Just a reminder, the Brooklyn Bridge opened in 1883. That’s less than 20 years after the American Civil War and decades before the Model T, or any car, was popularized.)
The report looked at bridges throughout the state, and found that 86 bridges in New York City are structurally deficient, defined as safe to drive on but either having compromised load-bearing elements or are prone to flooding.
While New York has the largest number of ailing bridges, it’s far from the area with the highest concentration. That honor goes to Seneca County, where nearly 35 percent of bridges are structurally deficient.
The Department of Transportation estimates that it will cost $20.4 billion to fix New York City’s bridges, a substantial chunk of the $27.4 billion estimate for fixes to the entire state’s bridges.
Find the report in full here.
- Local Bridges by the Numbers [official]
- NYC transportation coverage [Curbed]
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