Imagine if the Tappan Zee Bridge were to be suddenly shut down for safety reasons?
How would you get from Rockland and Orange counties to your job in Westchester?
How would you make a delivery from White Plains to the Palisades Mall in West Nyack?
And to be less parochial in thinking, what about the thousands of tractor-trailers that ply the bridge for nationwide deliveries? How would that disrupt all those businesses and in turn the businesses that rely on those deliveries? The backups on the George Washington, Bear Mountain and Newburgh-Beacon bridges would be incredible.
A closed Tappan Zee would have devastating and costly repercussions.
Thousands of people last year got a taste on a smaller scale of such a disaster when the half-mile long Crown Point Bridge over Lake Champlain connecting New York and Vermont was shut for safety reasons. Drivers had to resort to 100-mile long detours or wait their turn on a ferry to cross. Imagine waiting for a ferry to take you and your car across the Hudson? The bridge was demolished and a new one is expected to be finished by next October.
The Crown Point Bridge was the poster child for our state”™s flagging transportation infrastructure. The aging Tappan Zee and Kosciuszko bridges have become the new poster children by default.
Lt. Gov. Richard Ravitch just released a 15-page report on the state”™s crumbling transportation infrastructure. He didn”™t mince words as witnessed by his opening sentence: “New York state currently lacks the revenues necessary to maintain its transportation system in a state of good repair, and the state has no credible strategy for meeting future needs.”
Let us emphasize that he uses the word “maintain.”
So where does that leave a new Tappan Zee Bridge?
In his report, Ravitch says a new Tappan Zee would cost between $6 billion and $10 billion. Those numbers are on the low side. A more likely figure is $15 billion and with the interest rates, it would be closer to $23 billion.
So how do we pay for this?
Bonding only puts off the inevitable and places it squarely on the backs of future generations.
Ravitch recommends developing five-year plans that prioritize projects according to safety and security concerns.
“To preserve safety and prepare for economic recovery, the state must craft a multi-year transportation capital investment strategy that sets clear and attainable priorities, identifies reliable revenues and balances competing regional demands.”
Under his recommendation, the Tappan Zee should be No. 1 on the priority list. The bridge has languished in one of Dante”™s hells for more than a decade. Extricating it will take divine intervention ”“ or support on the federal level ”“ and most likely several billion dollars of private investment.
Ravitch suggested the state should “initiate an Environmental Impact Statement for a regional tolling strategy that would rationalize the downstate tolling regime. The development and phase-in of a coordinated regional tolling strategy that includes all key bridges and statewide roads, especially the parkway system, could provide funds for projects like the Tappan Zee Bridge.”
He also suggested looking into creating special taxing districts for certain megaprojects that have “the potential to dramatically increase economic activity and property values in an area.”
More taxes? We”™re already No.1 in that department nationwide.
The federal government will need to be tapped. This project is not just about Westchester and Rockland counties. Its potential for economic growth is far-reaching and long-term ”“ as is the disastrous consequence of doing nothing.
