MTA and local officials recently gathered at the Verrazano-Narrows toll plaza for a final goodbye. The Brooklyn-bound toll booths, dormant since one-way tolling began on the bridge in 1986, are being torn down after 24 years.
Wearing yellow hard hats and construction gloves, officials, including Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman and CEO Jay H. Walder, were handed parts of toll booth #1 as they were removed by workers.
The elected officials clapped and cheered as the #1 sign above the first toll booth was removed.
The April 18th event marked the beginning of a year-long, $2.5 million project to demolish the first 8 east-bound toll booths.
This is very good news for our customers who will have a much easier trip through this area by early next year,” MTA Chairman Walder said.
The toll booths will be demolished 24 years after one-way tolling at the bridge began as a six-month experiment in March 1986 at the urging of Staten Island elected officials. It was made permanent under the National Highway System Designation Act in 1995.
“The removal of these toll booths is the most significant change in the physical design of the bridge since the lower level was opened to traffic in 1969,” said Bridges and Tunnels Acting President Ferrara. The upper level of the bridge opened in November 1964.
The booths will be removed two at time, beginning with the two located to the far right of the Brooklyn-bound toll plaza. The project also includes removing concrete islands, utilities, canopy structures, electronic signs, as well as concrete and asphalt restoration work.
The current nine lanes of traffic coming through the toll plaza will be maintained during peak driving times by shifting traffic around the construction zone. Some off-peak lane closures may be scheduled.
A second phase of the project, slated to last from 2011 until 2014, will include removal of the last three unused toll booths, realignment of the roadway to allow for higher speed vehicles and improvements to on and off ramps near the toll plaza.
The Verrazano-Narrows Bridge is the most-heavily traveled of the seven bridges and two tunnels operated by MTA Bridges and Tunnels, carrying 188, 000 vehicles daily in both directions.
(YWN Desk – NYC)
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5 Responses
Leave it up to the corrupt politicians to give the bid to a company that will take A YEAR to remove the toll booths. Traveling on the Garden State Pkwy I remember when they too removed toll booths and somehow they removed many more toll booths in a matter of weeks. The bid must have been won by the same construction company that has been doing work on the BQE/Gawanus for the last 25 years!
There is something extremely wrong with the fact that the removal of 8 toll booths will take a year and cost $2.5 million??? I guarantee that the removal of 8 toll booths can be done by a heimishe contractor for $80K & take only 3 weeks. It’s unbelievable how our government allows itself to get ripped off. My prediction is it will take longer, cost more & they’ll have to increase the tolls to cover the expense. Its a shame that the people in control know they can just come to us for more $$ by raising the toll & are therefore not at all concerned with keeping costs down. By the way, anyone still think unions are good for the people??
Really???!!! 2.5 million??!! I would do it fo a couple hundred bucks.the same way I took down the old shed in my back yard. With a baseball bat. Seems like an incredible waste of taxpayer money.
cmon guys stop it.you gotta realize how much these things cost. sure it can be done in 3 weeks for 80k – if you shut down one side of the bridge for that time! still i agree that 1- 1.5M should do it. especially if you take into account how many coins they will find embedded in the asphalt!
now for some nostalgia-
as a new driver many years ago i was always scared i would hit one because one was (kinda) forced to go through them at highway speeds. scary for a new driver.
to #2 you are mistaken it is not the government that is getting ripped off it is the people who fund the government