The Throgs Neck Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City, carrying six lanes of Interstate 295 (I-295) over the East River where it meets the Long Island Sound. The bridge connects the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx with the Bay Terrace section of Queens.
Opened on January 11, 1961, it is the newest bridge across the East River and was built to relieve traffic on the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge, to the west. The Throgs Neck Bridge is also the easternmost crossing of the East River. Due to this and its proximity to I-95, it is the closest route from Long Island to New Jersey via the George Washington Bridge, as well as points north.
The Throgs Neck Bridge is owned by the government of New York City and operated by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), an affiliate agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
Description
The Throgs Neck Bridge is a six-lane suspension bridge, with three in each direction. It was designed by structural engineer Othmar Ammann, who also designed the George Washington, Bronx–Whitestone, Verrazzano–Narrows, and Triborough Bridges in New York City. It connects the boroughs of Queens to the south and the Bronx to the north, and is the third vehicular bridge to be constructed between Queens and the Bronx, after the Triborough and Bronx–Whitestone Bridges. Each three-lane roadway is wide, and the two directions of traffic are divided by a barrier. The roadway is paved with asphalt. There is no pedestrian or bicyclist access of any kind. The Throgs Neck Bridge is a toll bridge; it originally had tollbooths on the Bronx side, but they were replaced by open road tolling gantries in 2017.
Design The Throgs Neck Bridge did not have to accommodate large vessels of specific dimensions and as a result, did not need to be as long as other Ammann-designed bridges in New York City. The center span is , and the distance between each suspension tower and anchorage is , with an anchorage-to-anchorage total length of . The bridge contains two long approach ramps, one on either bank, because both the Bronx and Queens ends are located on low elevations. The bridge has a approach ramp in the Bronx, curving over the SUNY Maritime College at Fort Schuyler on the Throggs Neck peninsula, as well as a ramp directly east of Cryder's Point in Bay Terrace, Queens. Including approaches, the bridge spans more than .
The span is supported by two main cables, which suspend the deck and are held up by the suspension towers. Each main cable contains 37 strands, with each strand made of 296 individual wires, for a total of 10,952 wires per main cable. The main cables weigh each. At each end of the suspension span are two anchorages that hold the main cables, both of which are freestanding concrete structures measuring . The bridge's Bronx anchorage is at the tip of Throggs Neck, and the towers are located in the middle of the Long Island Sound. The Queens anchorage is located off the shore of Fort Totten, in the East River.
The suspension towers of the bridge are of closed-box construction with arched struts at the top of each tower. The tops of the suspension towers are sharp and blocky atop the struts, and there are flattened segmental arches on the underside of the struts. Both suspension towers are located on artificial concrete islands in the East River, which are above mean high water. Each suspension tower rises above the islands, or above mean high water. Peregrine falcons have lived high on a suspension tower since at least 1983, when they were first spotted. They are thought to have nested there because the tops of the towers resembled their natural habitat of high cliffs.
Instead of employing a rather streamlined-looking plate-girder system, Ammann constructed the bridge with stiffening transverse trusses under the deck. These served as counterweights to the bridge and allowed any wind to simply blow through, instead of against, the bridge. The asphalt roadway lies atop a deck, which consists of dozens of panels that lie directly above the trusses.
Road connections The Throgs Neck Bridge was one of the few that were not part of the plans for the Belt Parkway around Queens and Brooklyn. Instead, the bridge was built along with the Clearview Expressway in Queens and the eastern part of the Cross Bronx Expressway in the Bronx.
The Throgs Neck Bridge carries Interstate 295 (I-295). On the Queens side, the bridge connects to the southbound Clearview Expressway (I-295) and the southbound Cross Island Parkway. There is no direct connection to the northbound Cross Island Parkway or from the Cross Island Parkway service roads in either direction. On the Bronx side, there are connections to and from the community of Throggs Neck. The northbound entrance and exit leads to the Throgs Neck Expressway service road, while the southbound exit and entrance leads from the intersection of the Throgs Neck Expressway service road and Harding Avenue. Immediately afterward, the highway splits into the Throgs Neck Expressway (I-695), which connects to northbound I-95; and I-295, which connects to southbound I-95, westbound I-278, and northbound Hutchinson River Parkway at the Bruckner Interchange.
Traffic restrictions , the Throgs Neck Bridge has a height limit of for southbound vehicles and for northbound vehicles. The maximum width of any vehicle is . Tractor-trailers exceeding 53 feet and traveling between Long Island and the Bronx are required to use the Throgs Neck Bridge. A weight limit is imposed on heavy vehicles traveling on the bridge. The MTA allows 6 and 7-axle trucks with less than of gross vehicle weight, and 5-axle trucks with less than of gross vehicle weight, if they have valid divisible-load permits. Trucks carrying less than may also use the bridge, but all heavy loads are speed-restricted to and must use the center lane of the bridge. Heavy trucks carrying more than 80,000 lb without permits are prohibited from using the Throgs Neck Bridge.
Name The name of "Throgs Neck" in the bridge's name derives from John Throckmorton, who first settled Throggs Neck. The traditionally correct spelling is with two "g"s. Robert Moses—chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), which built the bridge—likely chose the variant with one "g" because it was easier to spell.
History
Planning Plans for a bridge between Throggs Neck and Queens date to a 1932 study by engineer J. Franklin Perrine. However, he discarded the proposed Throggs Neck-to-Queens span because it would have required the construction of new highways at either end.
The Throgs Neck Bridge's construction was announced in January 1955, by the Port Authority and the TBTA as part of the Port Authority's Joint Study of Arterial Facilities, a $600million plan to improve highway access in the New York City area (equal to $ billion in ). The plan also included the construction of the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge, the addition of a second deck to the George Washington Bridge, and the completion of connecting highways in and around the city. The Throgs Neck Bridge was to cost $93million. The span was needed because of increasing congestion on the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge west, which was nearing its traffic capacity by the late 1950s. Traffic loads on the Triborough and Bronx–Whitestone Bridges had more than doubled on both bridges after World War II. The city and Port Authority came to a provisional agreement for the highway arterial plan in late March 1955, and the plan was officially approved by the New York state legislature two weeks later.
Initially, the bridge approach on the Queens side was controversial because of the number of people who would be displaced, and there were proposals to scrap the bridge entirely. In September 1956, Queens borough leaders agreed on the location for the Queens approach of the Throgs Neck Bridge. From the Queens anchorage, the approach would descend to a point east of the Clearview Golf Course, approximately between 206th and 207th Streets, and continue south as the Clearview Expressway. This routing would displace 421 homes, compared to 860 in the original plan.
Shortly after the arterial plan was approved, drivers on the Triborough and Bronx–Whitestone Bridges were surveyed in order to assess demand for the Throgs Neck Bridge. However, by February 1956, the funding for the Throgs Neck Bridge had not yet been acquired. In January 1957, the Port Authority provided $13million in funding for the New York City arterial plan, and the New York state government gave another $469million.
With funding secured, the Throgs Neck Bridge was ready for the start of construction. Then, at the end of March 1957, the New York state legislature suddenly changed the approach route for the Throgs Neck and Narrows Bridges without the city's knowledge. The city then decided to defer any decision on either bridge for a year because both bridges' approaches would require potentially controversial home relocations. One plan had the Throgs Neck Bridge approach in Queens connect directly to a road paralleling the Cross Island Parkway, rather than to the proposed Clearview Expressway. TBTA officials warned that the Throgs Neck Bridge could not be approved for construction until an approach route was finalized. The revised approach routes for both the Narrows and the Throgs Neck bridges were approved that June, which allowed construction on both crossings to begin. As a result of the revisions to the Clearview Expressway approach, the cost estimate for the Throgs Neck Bridge increased to $126million.
The city approved the construction of the bridge that July. A final obstacle was removed in August, when the United States Senate passed a bill stating that the construction of the proposed bridge over the SUNY Maritime College at Fort Schuyler was not a breach of a prior land conveyance, and authorized the United States Army to give the New York state government some land for the bridge's construction. The SUNY Maritime College would receive of land in exchange for an easement to allow the bridge to be constructed over the college.
Construction
TBTA chairman Moses commissioned Othmar Ammann for the construction of the Throgs Neck Bridge. This was Ammann's first long-span bridge project since 1931, which saw the dedication of the George Washington Bridge over the Hudson River. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Throgs Neck Bridge occurred at the SUNY Maritime College on October 22, 1957. At the time, the approach roads alone were expected to cost $51million, nearly half of the total bridge cost. It was expected that the bridge would be complete by 1961. A month later, six construction contracts worth $42.5million were awarded, representing nearly half of the span's cost. The contract for the suspension towers' metal was awarded to Bethlehem Steel at a cost of $10.2million, and the contract for the towers' concrete went to Merrit, Chapman and Scott for $7.5million. The suspension cables would then be built by U.S. Steel for $6.3million.
Work on the Queens anchorage began in March 1958. The steel caissons for the Throgs Neck Bridge were shipped up the East River that summer. The steel assembly for the first of the two suspension towers were installed in April 1959. Afterward, the suspension towers were installed in pieces. Each piece measured tall by around. Work on the towers proceeded quickly; by September 1959, the Bronx suspension tower was fully completed, and the Queens tower was 60% completed. However, a steelworkers' strike in October 1959 threatened to delay further completion.