Tappan Zee Bridge Construction Hits Major Milestone
ALBANY, N.Y. (CBSNewYork/AP) -- Work on the new $4 billion Tappan Zee Bridge on the Hudson River north of New York City has hit a major milestone.
State officials say construction crews have topped off the eight main bridge towers, each 419 feet high. The final concrete is also expected to be poured this week.
Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo celebrated the accomplishment with a visit Tuesday to the bridge's Westchester side.
"We are here to celebrate the capping off of the mainstays, which is really just a celebration of the progress," Cuomo said.
In addition to the eight bridge towers, 90 percent of the bridge's support structures have been completed. More than 220 million pounds of steel and 300,000 cubic yards of concrete will go into the bridge.
"To see it reaching the sky, to see the power and the magnitude of it, really warms my heart," Cuomo said.
State officials say that's enough concrete to build a sidewalk from the project site to Key West, Florida.
The massive construction project — one of the largest New York bridge projects in decades — has seen its share of hardship.
Three were killed after a tugboat crashed into a stationary construction barge near the Tappan Zee Bridge and sank in March. Another two crew members were rescued after another tug boat accident at the end of June 2016.
In July, a 256-foot construction crane came crashing down on the original bridge, prompting hours of closures and a traffic nightmare for commuters.
No one was seriously injured in the incident — a fact Cuomo called a 'miracle' at the time.
The new bridge will have two spans, one in each direction, WCBS 880's Peter Haskell reported. The Rockland-bound stretch of the bridge is set to open in 2017, while the Westchester-bound lanes will be finished in 2018.
The existing bridge serves an average of 140,000 vehicles each day.
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