Matt Coyne, and Thomas C. Zambito

The Journal News

Work keeps chugging along on the new Tappan Zee Bridge.

While most of the mega infrastructure is done — the towers are finished, the majority of the stay cables have been installed and the main span is connected the whole way through on the Rockland-bound span — crews are still working to get the bridge ready for prime time, as it is slated to open some time this summer.

While Thruway Authority officials haven't given a firm date as to when the first of the new bridge project's two spans will open, road signs are going up on the bridge and lights are being installed and tested.

In preparation for its opening, we've pulled together what we know about the bridge.

1. When did this start?

The idea for the current Tappan Zee Bridge was percolating in the minds of New Yorkers as early as the 1860's before Westchester and Rockland counties were connected in 1955.

Deliberations on a new bridge go back a long time, too.

Talk about replacing the Tappan Zee Bridge dates back to at least 1999, with the state spending $88 million over the next 11 years just talking about it, according to Gov. Andrew Cuomo's office. In 2000, as the bridge closed in on its 50th birthday — signaling the end of its useful life — a state task force recommended a new, eight-lane span, which included a commuter rail line that would connect Port Chester and Newburgh.

That plan did not materialize. The idea finally got some concrete action in 2011, when a state board picked the Tappan Zee Constructors, a consortium of contractors, to design and build a new bridge.

Construction began in October 2013.

2. Is the bridge really about to fall over?

No matter how you slice it, the current Tappan Zee Bridge is in tough shape.

The Federal Highway Administration classifies it as "functionally obsolete." The state Department of Transportation gives it a 3.86 out of 7, where anything less than a 5 is considered deficient.

But that doesn't mean the Tappan Zee Bridge is in imminent danger of crumbling into the Hudson River.

The federal rating means the bridge is not up to current design features, including lane width, and it is handling more traffic than originally planned. The state rating means the bridge is in need of rehabilitation and the state Department of Transportation has been adamant that deficiency does not mean a bridge is unsafe and that if it was, they would close it.

Additionally, the state has spent money to that end, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Much of that went to replacing the bridge's concrete deck panels, which were the victims of what officials called "punch throughs," or holes through the road deck where the water can be seen below.

3. How much is this thing going to cost?

The figure state officials have been using is $3.9 billion, and they say they're on budget.

However, how they actually intend to pay those billions is a bit murky.

The state has tapped the federal government for loans, borrowed through bonding and said tolls could pay for the rest.

In 2013, the state secured a $1.6 billion Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act loan from the federal Department of Transportation. The low interest loan was a record for that program, which helps fund mega projects nationwide. The state also tried to secure more than $500 million in federal Environmental Protection Agency, but was denied in 2014.

The Thruway Authority has issued four separate bonds, three in 2013 and one in 2016. Those bonds raised $3.6 billion and some of that will help pay for the new bridge.

Additionally, officials have said toll revenue will help cover the costs, though Cuomo has said tolls will stay flat until 2020, instead using $2 billion in bank settlement funds to subsidize the Thruway Authority, which has generally been self-funding.

The state has also tried to help the Thruway Authority by shifting $60 million that the authority paid for police patrols to the state and moving the New York State Canal Corporation from Thruway Authority control to the New York Power Authority.

4. How much will tolls cost?

Ah, the proverbial $64,000 question. Tappan Zee Bridge drivers will get to use the new bridge for at least two years until they get smacked with a toll hike. That means two more years of paying $5 by mail, $4.75 by E-ZPass or a monthly pass discounted for commuters.

Gov. Cuomo announced in April that tolls on the 570-mile New York State Thruway will be frozen until 2020. And that includes the Tappan Zee Bridge.

After that, it’s anybody’s guess. The Journal News has repeatedly tried to get the state to fess up about the likely toll hike. Freedom of Information requests have come back redacted.

State officials say any revelation now could harm the Thruway’s credit rating.

State Sen. David Carlucci, a Clarkstown Democrat, has asked the governor to allow Rockland residents weigh in on their concerns. He’s called on Cuomo to make good on a promise to create a tolls task force by the end of the year.

“We’re excited to have a new, beautiful Tappan Zee Bridge, but the reality is, if you can’t afford the crossing, that will absolutely crush our economy,” Carlucci said.

One thing is certain. Come 2020, the toll will be going up. Bill Finch, the Thruway Authority’s executive director, admitted as much in February during a gathering at West Haverstraw Village Hall.

“I think it’s safe to say that they won’t be what they are now,” Finch said. “And that we will do everything we can to keep them as affordable as possible.”

“Obviously, like anything else in society, the cost of producing this is going up," Finch added. "Health care is stable but it’s not going down. Gasoline is not going down. All the things that the Thruway buys and pays for, which is labor and steel and asphalt are probably not going down. They are going to go up.”

5. When will it open?

The bridge is supposed to open in two stages.

First, the westbound span will open with all traffic moving from the current bridge to the new one. The westbound span, which will hold the eventual walking-biking path, is 96 feet wide allowing for eight lanes, while the rest of the bridge is finished. The current bridge is approximately 90 feet wide.

That was slated to happen in December 2016, but in late 2015, the Thruway Authority pushed it back until the spring or summer of this year. No firm date has been set and officials have been cagey in actually setting one.

When announced, then-Thruway Authority Executive Director Robert Megna said it did not "really make sense to open this in the middle of the winter."

When the traffic shifts over, crews will work on demolishing the old bridge and finishing the eastbound span.

The new Tappan Zee Bridge is set to open in its entirety some time in 2018.

6. What are they going to do with the old bridge?

The old bridge will be dismantled piece by piece and taken away by barge.

The bridge's steel superstructure, concrete substructure, concrete and steel road deck panels, and wood timber piles all will go, according to Khurram Saeed, spokesman for the New NY Bridge Project.

Where the material is going is not exactly clear.

"Tappan Zee Constructors has identified several disposal sites for the different types of a material," Saeed says. "TZC has not yet determined where the material will be delivered by barge. The material could be sent from the project site to one or more locations."

At the West Haverstraw appearance, Finch said that the old bridge would be put to good use, perhaps as a bulwark against storms and coastal flooding.

“The old girl she’ll be fighting for us, protecting us through storms,” Finch said.

7. What are they going to call this bridge?

Good question.

Right now, no one’s saying.

Pete Seeger? Mario Cuomo? The Son of the Tappan Zee Bridge? How about The Tappan Zee Bridge?

The big question is whether former New York State Gov. Malcolm Wilson will keep his name on the bridge. That’s right. The full name of the bridge is actually the Gov. Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge. It’s on those green signs as you get on the crossing.

Wilson, a Republican who got his political start in Yonkers, was lieutenant governor under Nelson Rockefeller for 15 years, a run that earned him the somewhat dubious title of “the enduring number 2.” He represented Westchester County in the Assembly for 20 years and, after Rockefeller stepped down in 1973, served a little more than a year as governor. He lost the general election to Democrat Hugh Carey in 1974.

In the ‘90s, Westchester County Republicans, with the backing of then-Gov. Mario Cuomo, won support for a proposal to name the bridge after Wilson. At a ceremony marking the event, sign-makers left off the second “l” in Malcolm.

Wilson’s daughter, Katharine Wilson Conroy, hasn't heard whether her father's name will remain on the new bridge, but she's rooting for it to stay there. “I get that question all the time, and I always give the same answer," Wilson Conroy says. "Send a letter to the governor.' I think it would be a wonderful honor."

8. What about public transportation?

Commuter rail across the Hudson River has been on New Yorkers' wishlist for a long time.

Unfortunately, they're going to have to wait. The new bridge can support railroad tracks, which would run between the two spans. But that's not part of the plan for the 2018 opening.

What the bridge will have is a bus system to replace the existing Tappan ZEExpress bus.

Exactly what form the Lower Hudson Transit Link will take when it replaces the existing bus service is still up in the air. At an open house last year, the state Department of Transportation pitched a system with four lines: from Suffern to the Palisades Center mall, from Monsey to White Plains, from the Palisades Center to White Plains and from the Palisades Center to the Tarrytown train station.

The department also confirmed that features like ramp meters would be put in place on I-287 to help traffic move more smoothly, transit signal priority would be implemented to keep lights green as buses approach and bus-only lanes called "jump queues" would be built at intersections to help buses get a head start.

But the original recommendation from the Mass Transit Task Force formed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo in 2012 called for dedicated bus lanes on the bridge and a system that connected Suffern to Port Chester east to west and Valhalla to Yonkers north to south. There is no word on when, or if, those recommendations would be rolled out.

9. What kind of bridge is it?

Unlike the current bridge, a truss bridge built on short order in the 1950's, the new Tappan Zee Bridge will be a cable-stayed bridge.

Cable-stayed bridges are similar to suspension bridges, like the George Washington Bridge, but instead of a system of primary and secondary cables to suspend the road deck, cable-stayed bridges hang several cables off a single tower, or in the case of the new Tappan Zee Bridge, eight towers.

Those eight towers serve as the primary load-bearing structure, ensuring only vertical weight reaching the bridge's foundation. Hanging from those eight towers are 192 cables, known as cable stays.

Some of the world's longest cable-stayed bridges are in China. The Bunker Hill Bridge in Boston and the Sunshine Skyway Bridge in Tampa are two of the United States' most famous cable-stayed bridges. Earlier this month, Gov. Andrew Cuomo opened the Kosciuszko Bridge between Brooklyn and Queens, also a cable-stayed bridge.

The new Tappan Zee Bridge is also notable for the design-build process used for its construction. Instead of the Thruway Authority hiring an architect, then soliciting bids from contractors to carry out the architect's plan, a single firm — in the case of the new bridge, the Tappan Zee Constructors — handle both the design and construction.

That method, according to proponents, brings down costs and shortens the length of construction projects.

10. When all is said and done, what is it going to look like?

When it opens for good in 2018, the new Tappan Zee Bridge will be a sight.

Like its current incarnation, the new bridge will be three miles long. Unlike its predecessor, eight, 419-foot high towers will rise from the Hudson River, with 192 stay cables suspending the 1,200 foot main span over the deepest part of the river.

Passengers will drive over eight lanes total, four in each direction on two separate spans, one eastbound and one westbound. Each span will have extra-wide shoulders and there will be an emergency turnaround lane.

LED lights will be affixed to each of the bridge's piers — the concrete supports for the road deck away from the main span — allowing the bridge to be lit up in certain colors for special events and to serve as a safety measure for boaters.

The westbound span will be wider than the eastbound span, 96 feet versus 87 feet. The westbound span will eventually host the walking and biking path, generally referred to as the shared-use path. The shared-use path will also consist of belvederes, or resting points. Each of the six belvederes will have a theme reflecting the culture and history of the Lower Hudson Valley, the Thruway Authority says.

The tolls will return to the Westchester side of the bridge from their temporary spot in South Nyack. Cashless tolling will still be in effect, however, with drivers passing under a similar overhead metal gantry to pay tolls.