
New Bridges Rise in New York - jseliger
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/27/nyregion/3-new-bridges-rise-in-new-york-with-looks-that-could-stop-traffic.html
======
twoodfin
This is as good a thread as any to mention that if the automotive
infrastructure of NYC gets you excited, it's but one of many good reasons to
pick up Robert Caro's epic _The Power Broker: Robert Moses and the Fall of New
York_.

I finished the Audible recording a few months ago, and it lived up to its
reputation as perhaps _the_ great modern biography.

~~~
AndyMcConachie
I got about half-way through the paper version before I gave up. It's very
detailed, and while I liked it, it was just too slow with too much detail.
Perhaps the audio version on a long trip would be better :)

~~~
Nav_Panel
Yeah, I stalled out a bit around there too, but I felt like things picked back
up with the chapter "One Mile" which is a very extensive neighborhood study of
the effect of a single mile of the Cross-Bronx Expressway that cut through the
(working class Jewish) East Tremont neighborhood.

Also, don't you want to know how his reign eventually met its end?

------
yeukhon
I wonder if we should have dedicated lanes (with barrier in between) for
trucks. Going to midtown there's already an express channel. Anyway, most of
the traffic is caused by ramp and intersection. Take the I-495. There's always
a traffic 1mile before splitting off to Grand Central and JFK, as two lanes go
unsplit, one lane goes to Grand Central and JFK. Most cars go to the right
(toward JFK). Then about 1000 feet away, there's another split to go to exit
22A, and just 300 feet, there's a small ramp to merge with the main road
again. See [1] follow the map. [2] illustrates the congestion about 2miles
before [1] where I usually merge with the I-495 traffic. The same is with the
Kosciusko bridge, once you pass the merge, the traffic is usually very smooth.

Driving there is nightmare.

[1]:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7375669,-73.8506027,3a,75y,7...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7375669,-73.8506027,3a,75y,75.72h,65.29t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sW-W51QrM6zOqvfScwfr6nw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

[2]:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7316156,-73.8699642,3a,75y,3...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7316156,-73.8699642,3a,75y,350.48h,66.64t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1saJ-
PgVIiN7DdPXEWTs0ewQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1)

~~~
apaprocki
Since you're mentioning the area, a JFK pro-tip is usually taking the second,
less frequently used exit from 495 that goes down the East side of Flushing
Meadows Corona Park [1]. Use Waze. Trust it, even if what it is telling you
seems crazy.

[1]:
[https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7292844,-73.8393884,1040a,35...](https://www.google.com/maps/@40.7292844,-73.8393884,1040a,35y,350.48h,44.63t/data=!3m1!1e3)

~~~
yeukhon
I really want to like Waze, two issues:

* I am not used to Waze UI I often missed my exit or turns..

* Waze often has a delay telling me when to turn (very often I get a turn signal just 100 feet away).

So my plan these days is use Google Map as always, but study the direction,
try to learn the road, and optimize on my own if I need to repeat the trip
again. My dad says a good driver needs to know how major road works. Years ago
GPS wasn't a thing and people got by without problems. Last year's Labor Day
weekend I spent the holiday with my friends in Lake George. On the third day I
had zero cellular connectivity most of the time on the road, but lucky me I
already learned the road (since we have been driving in and out the place
multiple times during the day), I was able to get by with little problem.

~~~
Declanomous
Waze is very bad at notifying you of chains of directions. For instance "Take
a left on Main St, then take an immediate right on to N 1st St."

It will say "Take a left on Main St." then think for a little while, and then
beep because it needs to reroute you.

It's really annoying, because it means you need to look at your screen in
order to figure out exactly where you are going. Google Mpas gives much, much,
much better verbal instructions. I know WAZE doesn't have as much information
on every given road as Google, but it isn't difficult to figure out if the
next instruction is going to be given too late.

~~~
yeukhon
I think it's the opposite though. Google Map is very clean. It certainly
doesn't optimize route like Waze does (seriously I don't get it why,
especially Waze is now part of Google). Google Map is known for taking the
main road avoiding local whenever possible. BTW, I don't turn on voice
notification, I read the graphic off the screen.

~~~
ghaff
>Google Map is known for taking the main road avoiding local whenever
possible.

That's not really my experience. At least some subset of the time Google Maps
seems to get it into its head that what it would really like to do is take a
nice country drive that involves making turns every half-mile or less. I can't
comment on how frequently it does this relative to other applications, but
Google will definitely sometimes take you on a very convoluted route to
ostensibly save 3 minutes.

~~~
yeukhon
It's fair, it's relative to time, location, and sometimes your preferences
(avoid toll etc).

I had that experience sometimes, but perhaps places i visit happen to have
main road around. There are times I look at the GMap and just goes smh telling
myself I know a better route than Google does, and I am right many times. Now
I have driven for two years, I actually enjoy driving and figuring out how to
get to a destination.

~~~
ethbro
I believe they did this in defference to residents after an earlier, more
perfectly otimized algorithm ended up turning residential streets into main
traffic thoroughfares.

------
ghaff
For those interested, this article [1] discusses the history of cable-stayed
bridges and touches on why they've become popular for a certain length of
bridge. ("Improvements in stress tolerance, corrosion resistance and computer
modeling around the same time helped their popularity grow as engineers built
them cheaper and more efficiently.")

[1] [https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/popular-cable-
sta...](https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/popular-cable-stay-bridges-
rise-across-u-s-to-replace-crumbling-spans/)

~~~
soneca
A beautiful one was recently built in São Paulo:
[https://omundoemeuvizinho.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/dsc_01...](https://omundoemeuvizinho.files.wordpress.com/2010/08/dsc_01512.jpg)

[https://www.google.com.br/search?q=ponte+estaiada+s%C3%A3o+p...](https://www.google.com.br/search?q=ponte+estaiada+s%C3%A3o+paulo&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjX2uidhMXTAhWClJAKHbfRAuUQ_AUICygC&biw=1362&bih=660)

~~~
nyolfen
that is a truly beautiful bridge. there's a very nice looking one in dallas as
well, though i didn't have the words for its type until just now:
[https://www.google.com/search?q=hunt-
hill+bridge+dallas&clie...](https://www.google.com/search?q=hunt-
hill+bridge+dallas&client=safari&hl=en-
us&prmd=minv&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwj525WiosXTAhVlw1QKHURMBWoQ_AUICigC&biw=414&bih=628)

------
bung
Someone mentioned in a comment recently on the Venezuela protests, how some of
the highways we saw in pictures packed with people were not necessarily
designed to support the standing weight of people shoulder to shoulder.

And yet, in so many movies, bridges in NYC are filled with people and/or
military vehicles going one way or another. I wonder if they were tasked with
actually making sure the bridges could support a city evacuation or massive
protest.

~~~
arjunvpaul
Short Answer: Don't worry about people's weight. Invite as many people and
cars as you like.

Bridges are designed and built with enough redundancy that if you fit all the
people you can find on them, they can comfortably handle the weight. One
should be more worried about not how many folks are there but HOW they are
moving. Remember if you are in a protest and on a bridge don't "walk in step"
like this [https://goo.gl/dXIvBN](https://goo.gl/dXIvBN) . If you are
interested in why this happened watch this
[https://goo.gl/ZOlzyx](https://goo.gl/ZOlzyx) (skip to 2:42)

Forget the modern concrete and steel ones, when we built small bridges for
villagers in Rwanda and Central America, we would ask all the villagers and
their horses to come and fill them (just like in the protest pictures). This
is basically done to address the concerns of some folks like you who may have
to see it to believe it :-) See picture here:
[https://goo.gl/RIixT0](https://goo.gl/RIixT0)

Source: Personal experience being a construction engineer who has built cable
stayed bridges and the ones in the picture.

~~~
bung
Very cool. I suppose in hindsight I think the guy was talking about those
elevated highway overpasses and/or on/off ramps, not exactly nice new
suspension bridges :) Anyway thanks for the details.

------
run4yourlives2
I hope NYC has done their research... Cable stayed bridges like this have a
nasty habit of allowing snow and ice to freeze on those cables. The melt
results in literal "ice bombs" onto the traffic below, with some rather
disastrous consequences.

Vancouver has been dealing with this for a little while now, and NYC gets a
heck of a lot more snow...

[http://globalnews.ca/news/3108176/windshields-shattered-
afte...](http://globalnews.ca/news/3108176/windshields-shattered-after-ice-
bombs-fall-from-metro-vancouver-bridges/)

~~~
prawn
Could you have little automatically-run cable wipers that slid down
periodically and were retracted.

~~~
arjunvpaul
Here is a link that you may find interesting
[http://www.iaarc.org/publications/fulltext/P2-7.pdf](http://www.iaarc.org/publications/fulltext/P2-7.pdf)

------
sandworm101
This is the most 'New York' story ever. It has all the stereotypes. It's about
bridges. There is an unpronounceable name of a long-dead local notary, one's
pronunciation then betraying on exactly which of New York's many blocks one
grew up. We are reminded of how New York is actually a bunch of cities that at
many levels squabble like they were different countries. Even the text: "But
wait, there's more!" was a bit in MyCousinVinny. The article then spawns
debates amongst New Yorkers over which viaduct, bypass, turnpike or expressway
best gets one from one side of the city to the other. They are all ROADS.
Every city has them. Why each must be so classified escapes me. Yes, New York
roads are more convoluted than the average. It is an old city. But it isn't
London or Tokyo. All this article needs mow is a reference to a pizza or bagel
place.

Of course I only recognize these tells because of New York's place in modern
media, the setting of so much TV situational humour that street names are
household words worldwide. More feet may be shot in Vancouver or LA, but
everything is still set in NY.

~~~
charles-salvia
I've lived in NY my whole life, but am not familiar with this stereotype about
unpronounceable names. Apart from Kosciuszko there aren't too many difficult
to pronounce names of bridges/tunnels/express-ways, etc. Kosciuszko is a
Polish name - the bridge is named after a Revolutionary War general, not a
local New York politician. Most other bridges/tunnels/express-ways are named
after famous American politicians (Washington/Lincoln/RFK), or are just named
obvious descriptive things like "Brooklyn-Queens Expressway". Every now and
then some bridge gets renamed (Triboro -> RFK), but nobody cares. AFAIK the
only bridge named after a local New York politician is the "Ed Koch" bridge,
but nobody calls it that anyway.

~~~
sandworm101
[http://www.timesunion.com/local/item/Movoto-Californians-
try...](http://www.timesunion.com/local/item/Movoto-Californians-try-to-
announce-New-York-34644.php)

"Of course, this isn’t an exact science — different article in The New York
Times even list slightly different pronunciation guides, and different native
speakers pronounce words differently. In the Bronx, the streets are lined with
tricky titles, including Lyvere Street, Lowerre Place, Fteley Avenue and
Schieffelin Avenue."

[https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/pronouncing-
th...](https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/07/01/pronouncing-the-
unpronounceable/)

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_streets_in_N...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_eponymous_streets_in_New_York_City)

It's a thing. That natives don't see it only makes it more a thing.

~~~
charles-salvia
Okay, well - never knew this. But that example seems really cherry-picked.
Many NY street names are just numbers, even in other boroughs outside
Manhattan. Many streets in the Bronx are just a number (130-something street
to 230-something street, carrying over from upper Manhattan).

------
apaprocki
They mention it in the article, but sometime this July (estimated) they will
literally blow up the old bridge. There are limited opportunities for viewing
large-scale demolition in NYC, so make sure to put that one on your calendar
and join the tailgate :)

~~~
forgotAgain
Probably a few million people who would love to push that button. Myself
included. One of those places in the city where you're guaranteed to sit in
traffic no matter what time of day on night you approach it.

------
dsr_
For those who are wondering: locals say "Koss-ee-OSS-ko", I would prefer Kuh-
SHOOS-ko.

~~~
donretag
I have been pronouncing it the same way 1010WINS pronounces it. Traffic
updates decades before Waze!

------
CodeSheikh
Put a new bridge crossing Hudson between west Manhattan and Jersey City to
reduce the ACTUAL traffic coming in from New Jersey. Oh wait..they can't as it
will bring down inflated real estate in Manhattan held by older folks with
convincing power to city planners.

~~~
erentz
Arguably the whole metro New York area should be reorganized under one
government.

~~~
Pxtl
Ask Toronto how that worked out for them. Hint: The suburbs took over the
mayor's office and Toronto got and loud, angry crack-addled car-traffic
obsessed mayor.

~~~
simonbarker87
Toronto has some of the worst traffic I've ever experienced anywhere. The
drive from Toronto to Guelph at 2pm on a Wednesday (i.e. A time that is not
peak) was nose to tail for the first 20 miles. The whole drive took just under
2 hours and apparently that's considered pretty normal. It's 58 miles!

~~~
Pxtl
The disastrous state of our expressways and commuter rail are provincial
responsibility - the mayor is in charge of in-city roadways and transit.

The 401 and QEW are a disaster though, I agree. Mississauga and the rest of
the Western GTA sprawl are the worst-case example of how induced demand can
ruin a roadway.

~~~
slededit
The Gardiner Expressway is managed by the city, as is the DVP. So not all
expressways are provincial.

------
throw7
There's two Kosciusko bridges, one upstate, which came to mind (oh cool,
they're replacing that one? wrong :)). The one upstate is colloquially called
the twin bridges since no one can pronounce Kosciusko. (edit: the link has the
correct pronunciation so I make you work for it. :D)

[http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2009/06/29/why-they-
named-t...](http://alloveralbany.com/archive/2009/06/29/why-they-named-the-
twin-bridges-for-thaddeus-kosci)

------
throwaway2016a
Reminds me a little of the Zakim Bridge in Boston.

I love crossing the bridge at night (it lights up). It's a shame I'm not in
Boston much and the traffic flow usually takes me under it or around it.

~~~
milquetoastaf
Man it was satisfying to cross that beautiful bridge after years and years of
awful traumatizing Boston traffic. The difference is unreal.

------
johan_larson
I bet you could tune the designs so the cables could be played like the
strings of a harp. But with a sledgehammer!

It's a lot to ask for. But it would be so worth it.

~~~
cannam
"Human Harp is a clip-on instrument that transforms suspension bridges into
giant harps"

[http://dimainstone.com/project/human-
harp/](http://dimainstone.com/project/human-harp/)

~~~
dom0
That's actually not using the bridge as an instrument... the little boxes
measure how you pull on the wire and send that data to a synthesizer. That's
why it sounds so diverse.

------
pklausler
Portland (of course) also has a beautiful new cable-stayed bridge.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilikum_Crossing](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilikum_Crossing)

------
euroclydon
Concrete must have tremendous compression resistance strength, but I often see
concrete beams, and wonder how the concrete adds any flexural strength to the
internal steel.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
You're seeing "reinforced" concrete beams. Parts of a beam are in compression,
others are in tension and which part is in which can vary. The mechanical
properties of the concrete and steel compliment each other.

~~~
euroclydon
So if the beam is holding a load over a span, then the concrete on the bottom
of the beam, which is experiencing tensil force, is doing little? I mean, I
assume concrete has poor tensile strength.

~~~
angersock
Worse than little--it's getting pulled apart.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_yYLZac_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CC_yYLZac_s)

~~~
euroclydon
Thanks. That's reassuring; does not catastrophically fail.

------
tbrock
San Francisco could definitely take a page out of New York's book here. Lets
build some infrastructure!

~~~
s0rce
Connect BART all the way around the bay would be a good start and improve
integration with other rail, amtrak, caltrain, airports, ACE, etc.

------
kchoudhu
Giant sops for drivers, while the daily commute out of Penn Station is
starting to resemble a third world country.

Car culture needs to die in a nuclear fire.

------
shmerl
I hope it has a walkway too. Not sure what they were thinking when they made
Verrazano bridge without one.

------
kostyk
Wow i just crossed it this morning on my semi.

------
oneplane
Why are so many of those words capitalised...

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OldSchoolJohnny
LOL. Wait until chunks of ice start dropping off those cables in the winter
and coming through windows to see how "beautiful" that design is.

~~~
ceejayoz
This is hardly a new bridge design, nor is it new to regions that have
winters. Chances are ice has been accounted for.

