Bridges Report Reveals Troubled Waters Ahead

More than half of Queens’ 202 vehicular and pedestrian bridges require extensive rehabilitation, it was reported by the city Transportation Department’s (DOT) 2004 Annual Condition Report.
Queens’ worst bridge for the past two years is the Flushing Meadows Bridge, at 76th Road and Willow Lake. The sagging pedestrian span — considered “potentially hazardous” — is a feeder artery into the designated heartland of Mayor Bloomberg’s vast 2012 Olympic proposal.
Councilman John Liu, who chairs the council’s Transportation Committee, called for this “area to be rehabilitated and improved.”
Also figuring prominently in the report is the low physical status of the multi-functioning Roosevelt Avenue Bridge, which is a key factor of a proposed $600 million commercial and residential center.
The developer [Muss Corp.] has proposed entries from the proposed center’s massive 2,650-car garage onto the poorly-rated, but busy bridge that links Downtown Flushing with the-soon-to-be-developed “Iron Triangle.”
On the plus side the DOT reported that engineers are completing final designs of eight borough bridges and are readying contracts for construction on the Jamaica Avenue Bridge over the Cross Island Parkway, the Metropolitan Avenue overpass over the Conrail lines, the 49th Street Bridge over the Grand Central Parkway, the Merrick Boulevard and 130th Avenue Bridges over the Laurelton Parkway, the ramps to Manhattan via the Queensboro Bridge from 11th and 21st streets, the 149th Street Bridge over the LIRR, and the Metropolitan Avenue Bridge over the LIRR.
All of the city’s 771 bridges are inspected every two years.
Victor Ross is a freelance writer.