La Guardia, who believed that a public necessity should not be provided by private interests. However, a vote on the planned Liberty Bridge was never taken, as it was blocked by then-Congressman Fiorello H. The city also envisioned a possible connection to the preexisting Manhattan Bridge, connecting Downtown Brooklyn to Lower Manhattan. On the Brooklyn side, the city planned to connect the Liberty Bridge to a "Crosstown Highway", spanning Brooklyn and Queens and connecting to the proposed Triborough Bridge in northwestern Queens. The Liberty Bridge would carry vehicles from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to an as-yet-undetermined location on Staten Island. It was hoped that the new construction would spur development on Staten Island, along with the Outerbridge Crossing and the Bayonne Bridge, which were under construction at the time. : 136 In November 1929, engineers released plans for the 4,500-foot (1,400 m) Liberty Bridge spanning the Narrows, with 800-foot-tall towers. The bridge's towers would be 800 feet (240 m) high and it would cost $60 million in 1928 dollars. In 1928, when the chambers of commerce in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and Staten Island announced that the Interboro Bridge Company had proposed the future construction of the "Liberty Bridge" to the United States Department of War. : 135 At the time, Staten Island was isolated from the rest of New York City, and its only direct connection to the other four boroughs was by the Staten Island Ferry to South Ferry in Manhattan, or 39th and 69th Streets in Brooklyn. Steinman brought up the possibility of such a crossing. View of the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge from Upper New York Bay, with Coney Island in the distanceĪ bridge across the Narrows had been proposed as early as 1926 or 1927, when structural engineer David B.
#Easy pass staten island drivers#
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge collects tolls in both directions, although only westbound drivers paid a toll from 1986 to 2020 in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion. When the bridge was officially named in 1960, it was misspelled "Verrazano-Narrows Bridge" due to an error in the construction contract the name was officially corrected in 2018. The bridge has the 18th-longest main span in the world, as well as the longest in the Americas. It was the longest suspension bridge in the world until it was surpassed by the Humber Bridge in the United Kingdom in 1981. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge has a central span of 4,260 feet (1.30 km 0.81 mi). The New York City government began a $1.5 billion reconstruction of the bridge's two decks in 2014. Designed by Othmar Ammann, Leopold Just and other engineers at Ammann & Whitney, the bridge opened on November 21, 1964, and a lower deck in 1969 to alleviate high levels of traffic. Various problems delayed the start of construction until 1959. In the late 1940s, urban planner Robert Moses championed a bridge across the Narrows as a way to connect Staten Island with the rest of the city. Discussion of a tunnel resurfaced in the mid-1930s and early 1940s, but the plans were again denied. A 1920s attempt to build a Staten Island Tunnel was aborted, as was a 1930s plan for vehicular tubes underneath the Narrows. Steinman proposed a bridge across the Narrows in the late 1920s, but plans were deferred over the next twenty years. The span is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, who in 1524 was the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River.Įngineer David B. The double-deck bridge carries 13 lanes of Interstate 278, with seven lanes on the upper level and six on the lower level. It is the only fixed crossing of the Narrows. It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed Upper New York Bay with Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge ( / v ər ə ˈ z ɑː n oʊ/ vər-ə- ZAH-noh) is a suspension bridge connecting the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn.
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November 21, 1964 57 years ago ( ) (upper level) Othmar Ammann, Leopold Just and other engineers at Ammann & Whitney
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New York City ( Staten Island– Brooklyn), New York (7 lanes on upper level: 6 fixed-direction, 1 reversible HOV lane