Transport: Triborough

Only one of New York City’s five boroughs on the U. S. mainland is The Bronx. Between it and Manhattan Island flows the sludgy little Harlem River. Between it and Queens on Long Island churns Hell Gate, connecting East River with Long Island Sound.* Until last week there was no way, except for a feeble ferry, for motorists on the mainland to reach Long Island without passing through Manhattan. This traffic gap was then closed by the ceremonious opening of a $60,300,000 collection of viaducts and spans called the Triborough Bridge.

Uniting The Bronx, Manhattan and Queens by means of an enormous steel and concrete Y, the Triborough Bridge represents the biggest single thing New York City has so far got out of the New Deal. The Federal Government lent $35,000,000, gave $9,200,000 towards its construction. Largely because of this heavy stake, President Roosevelt went to New York City last week to dedicate the new bridge. Chief engineer of the Triborough was Othmar Hermann Ammann, who swung the Port of New York Authority’s huge George Washington Bridge across the Hudson River. When his turn came last week to answer President Roosevelt’s oratory, Engineer Ammann low-rated the science of his bridge-building by declaring:

“It is not the size or character of these structures which gives this project its distinctive character. It is outstanding as a modern traffic artery through a great metropolis, planned to combine speed and safety as well as a form of recreation to the traveling public to an extent not equaled in any similar project.”

Prime mover for the Triborough Bridge was Robert Moses. In 1933 as New York State Emergency Public Works Commission Chairman, he organized the Triborough Bridge Authority, begged and borrowed the New Deal millions. Made New York City’s Fusion Park Commissioner in 1934, he worked out the essential chain of highways tying the bridge into Long Island’s great parkway system and East Side Manhattan traffic. The heart of the Triborough begins with a suspension bridge across Hell Gate to Wards Island, whence the elevated highway turns north to Randalls Island. There occurs the Y’s split, one arm reaching across the Harlem River on the world’s biggest (but not heaviest) lift bridge to Manhattan, the other crossing The Bronx Kills to the mainland by means of three truss spans.

Of more interest to motorists than the bridges themselves was the system of traffic control devised by Engineer Ammann and aides. By means of carefully arranged approaches and cunning underpasses on Randalls Island, all crossovers were completely eliminated from the Triborough, with the result that not a single traffic light is needed. Simple though the system looked on paper, it proved complicated enough the first day to send President Roosevelt’s police escort awry.

The eight traffic lanes of the bridge can handle 57,000 vehicles per 12-hr, day. First 24 hours the bridge was opened last week 50,000 automobiles crossed over. In the next twelve hours 50.000 more crossed. Motorists paid 25¢ toll per car, trucks up to 75¢. Passenger cars were compelled to travel 40 m.p.h. across the bridge. Fifteen minutes sufficed to cover distances which heretofore required well over an hour through narrow streets and over older bridges. Immediate result of the Triborough’s opening: a 30% drop in traffic across the older East River bridges between Manhattan and Long Island on which no toll is charged.

*New York’s Borough of Brooklyn is on Long Island, its Borough of Richmond on Staten Island.