One of the largest floating cranes in the world is headed for the site of the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement project, scheduled to arrive between 11 a.m. and noon Monday.
The Left Coast Lifter was making its way up the Hudson River at a pace of less than 5 knots per hour from Jersey City, with Gov. Andrew Cuomo set to greet the crane and join a tour of the massive machinery with members of the press in Piermont.
The Left Coast Lifter, nicknamed I Lift NY by state officials, has a 328-foot lifting arm that will be used to hoist 1,000-ton pieces of the new bridge. The components of the replacement bridge will be brought to the area by barge. The crane also will take part in dismantling the existing, 60-year-old current bridge.
The super crane, with a reach taller than the Statue of Liberty and longer than a football field, arrived in New York Harbor in January, after a 6,000-mile journey that began in San Francisco and took the crane into the waters of the Pacific, through the Panama Canal and into the Atlantic.
The crane, owned by TZC, has been touted as keeping construction costs down, although questions persist over what the toll will cost on the new bridge. The $3.9 billion, double-span replacement bridge has been called on schedule and on budget by state agencies but questions remain about funding the construction, accentuated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency”™s recent rejection of a $511 million loan out of a clean water fund.
The EPA said most of the funds were ineligible because of the nature of the construction.
