New York has the busiest bridge in the world for motor vehicles: it is an impressive engineering marvel

There are architectural works that were a wonder of their time, but that continue to surprise us today. New York, also known as “the city that never sleeps,” is home to many of these historical projects that do not usually go unnoticed. In fact, many of them have become real tourist attractions. Just mention the iconic Empire State BuildingGrand Central Terminal or Brooklyn bridge.

In this metropolis we also find the George Washington Bridge (GWB), which holds at least one world record: It is the busiest bridge in the world for motor vehicles. The amazing thing is that, during its first year of operation, between 1931 and 1932, at least 5.5 million trips were recorded. Work continued as traffic increased. Since 2016, according to official data, more than 103 million vehicles pass through it per year.

A very important bridge for New York

Let’s visually locate our protagonist. The GWB crosses the Hudson River, the same one in which a US Airways Airbus A320 ditched in 2009, to connect Fort Lee, in New Jersey, with Upper Manhattan, in New York City. This is a crossing that we could consider vital because a huge number of people They use it daily to get to work while it is also used for the transportation of goods in the metropolitan area.

But how can so many vehicles pass at the same time? The answer is that, like many other bridges, the GWB has several levels. On the upper level we find four lanes in each direction and on the lower level three lanes in each direction. So we have a total of 14 traffic lanes. But not only motorized vehicles travel through it, there are also paths for pedestrians and bicycles. You know, in case you don’t want to take the car during rush hour.

Pedestrians and cyclists share the sidewalks, which are open seven days a week. Returning to motor transport, despite its age, the GWB also incorporates a lot of technology. It has an Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) that collects traffic information in real time to detect incidents. If there is an incident, not only are emergency services activated, but electronic signals are updated to redirect motorists.

It may be interesting to look back in time to learn a little more about the origins of this century-old project. In short, the proposal of an architect and engineer of Swiss origin called Othmar Ammann was selected to build the bridge in 1923. Construction, however, did not begin immediately. We had to wait until October 1927 for the Port Authority of New York to begin work on the ground.

First the towers were raised, then the cables and finally the steel stays. The next step was to prepare the road, step by step from the banks. A very important point of this work is the anchoring in New York. This is responsible for keeping the main cables in place and has a weight of 260,000 tons. On the New Jersey side, the cables are anchored deep in rocks in front of the Hudson River.

As we say, the official opening of the bridge occurred in October 1931, but the works did not stop. The two central lanes, which were not finished, were opened in 1946. On August 29, 1962, the lower level was inaugurated, which increased the number of available lanes. This move increased the bridge’s capacity by 75%. Since 2000 it has had a renewed lighting system made up of a total of 760 pieces.

Abraham | Famartin | Asaavedra32 | Doug Kerr | Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

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