24 Facts About Triborough Bridge

1.

Robert F Kennedy Bridge is a complex of bridges and elevated expressway viaducts in New York City.

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2.

Each tower was supposed to have two ornate arches at the top, similar to the Brooklyn Triborough Bridge, and was to have been supported by four legs: two on the outside and two in the center.

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3.

Three spans of the RFK Triborough Bridge intersect at a grade-separated T-interchange on Randalls Island.

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4.

Plans for the Tri-Borough Triborough Bridge were bolstered by the 1919 closure of a ferry between Yorkville in Manhattan and Astoria in Queens.

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5.

Triborough Bridge stated that the Hell Gate Bridge could be retrofitted with an upper deck for vehicular and pedestrian use.

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6.

Triborough Bridge explained that the Hell Gate Bridge only had enough space for five lanes of roadway, so a new bridge would have to be constructed parallel to it.

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7.

Tri-Borough Triborough Bridge was being planned in conjunction with the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, which would create a continuous highway between the Bronx and Brooklyn with a southward extension over The Narrows to Staten Island.

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8.

Triborough Bridge was ultimately planned to cost $24million and was planned to start construction in August 1929.

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9.

The preliminary Triborough Bridge proposal comprised four bridges: a suspension span across the East River to Queens; a truss span across Bronx Kill to the Bronx; a fixed span across the Harlem River to Manhattan; and a steel arch viaduct across the no-longer-extant Little Hell Gate between Randalls and Wards Islands.

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10.

Scale of the Triborough Bridge project, including its approaches, was such that hundreds of large apartment buildings were demolished to make way for it.

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11.

The amount of human energy expended in its construction gives some idea of its immensity: more than five thousand men would be working at the site, and these men would only be putting into place the materials furnished by the labor of many times five thousand men; before the Triborough Bridge was completed, its construction would have generated more than 31,000,000 man-hours of work in 134 cities in twenty states.

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12.

Triborough Bridge objected to an order that Ickes made in March 1936, decentralizing control of PWA resident engineers, who would report to state PWA bosses instead of directly to the PWA's main office in Washington, DC Moses believed that the PWA boss for New York, Arthur S Tuttle, was indecisive.

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13.

Byproduct of the Triborough project was the creation of parks and playgrounds in the lands underneath the bridges and approaches.

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14.

The American Institute of Steel Construction later declared the Triborough Bridge to be the most beautiful steel bridge constructed in 1936.

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15.

In either case, the Triborough Bridge was one of the largest public works projects of the Great Depression, more expensive than the Hoover Dam.

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16.

In Queens, the Grand Central Parkway extension to the Triborough Bridge was nearly completed at the time of the bridge's opening.

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17.

Triborough Bridge Authority was headquartered in an administration building adjacent to the Manhattan span's toll plaza, where by 1940, it controlled the operation of all toll bridges located entirely within New York City.

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18.

However, the Triborough Bridge did not see any initial decline in traffic, likely because both spans were heavily used during the World's Fair.

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19.

Still, by 1940, the Triborough Bridge was the most profitable crossing operated by the TBA.

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20.

In 1968, the Triborough Bridge received its first major renovation in its 31-year history.

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21.

On November 19,2008, the Triborough Bridge was officially renamed after Robert F Kennedy, former US Senator representing New York and US Attorney General, at the request of the Kennedy family.

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22.

Toll revenues from the RFK Triborough Bridge pay for a portion of the public transit subsidy for the New York City Transit Authority and the commuter railroads.

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23.

Triborough Bridge has sidewalks on all three spans where the TBTA officially requires bicyclists to walk their bicycles across due to safety concerns.

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24.

RFK Triborough Bridge carries the M35, M60 SBS and X80 bus routes operated by MTA New York City Transit, as well as several express bus routes operated by the MTA Bus Company: BxM6, BxM7, BxM8, BxM9, BxM10 and BxM11.

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