Hudson River Question

[Pips]

Was cruising along the Hudson River in my Antoinette and admiring the scenery, when I noticed something odd. Well, to me at least anyway.

There are so few bridges across this mighty river! :)

It's like you literally have to travel miles up or downstream to find a bridge crossing. And crossing's become less frequent as you head upstream. Yet both shorelines are heavily populated. Are the bridges supplemented by car ferries?

As an Australian I find it very odd. We don't have a great river like the Hudson anywhere near our major cities, and what rivers we do have that run through those cities have multiple crossing within very short distances.

Just struck me as very odd. :)

[Alan_A]

If you'll permit an ex-New Yorker to comment (I was born in Manhattan and lived there for 47 years before moving to the Washington, DC area)...

There are very few Hudson River bridges in the New York City area. The only one in Manhatan is the George Washington Bridge at 181st Street (pretty far uptown). After that there's the Tappan Zee Bridge in Tarrytown (roughly alongside KHPN). Then the Poughkeepsie River Bridge north of that, and a few smaller ones as you go upstate.

To my knowledge, all of them are represented in FSX.

In New York City, south of the GW Bridge, most car traffic is handled by two tunnels - the Lincoln Tunnel at 34th Street (alongside the Empire State Building) and the Holland Tunnel in lower Manhattan (just north of the old World Trade Center site).

There's a lot of ferry service in the Hudson, but it's all passenger ferries - no cars.

Over on the East River, there are more bridges - three in lower Manhattan (Brooklyn, Manhattan and Williamsburg), one in midtown (the 59th Street or Queensboro bridge), and one uptown (the RFK bridge, formerly known as the Triboro). There's also one tunnel in lower Manhattan - the Brooklyn-Battery tunnel.

Finally, at the harbor entrance, there's the Verazzano-Narrows Bridge, connecting Staten Island to Brooklyn.

The reason for the small number of Hudson bridges - it has to do with the commercial shipping that the river used to handle. The world's largest ocean liners docked, first between 14th and 23rd Streets, and later (from the 1930's on) in midtown, where FSX shows large piers, a ship, and an aircraft carrier, which is the Intrepid museum). It would have been hard to build bridges high enough to allow the ships to pass beneath. So tunnels were preferred. The GW Bridge is built on high bluffs on both sides of the river - and it's north of the major piers. The Verazzano bridge is longer, and can be built higher (even so, the Queen Mary 2 clears it by about two feet). In midtown Manhattan, high bridges would have required big standoff areas on the land sides, and land in Manhattan is too valuable for that.

An odd FSX detail - if you have UTX USA and turn on 2D bridges, you'll see the tunnels as roadways sitting on top of the river. The program sees the two ends of the road and tries to connect them by building a bridge - it doesn't know they're supposed to be tunnels. It's not realistic but it shows you where the tunnels are.

As for the number of people in the area - if you plan on crossing any of them (or the tunnels) in rush hour, give yourself an extra hour.

Hope this helps.


Best,
Alan

[Pips]

So what do the folks who live upriver do? Say from Tappan Zee Bridge on up? Do they simply accept that they have to travel fairly long distances to a bridge if they want to cross? Or is life deliberately geared living within what's on your side of the river?

[Alan_A]

So what do the folks who live upriver do? Say from Tappan Zee Bridge on up? Do they simply accept that they have to travel fairly long distances to a bridge if they want to cross? Or is life deliberately geared living within what's on your side of the river?

Yes, that's basically it. It's not really as bad as it sounds. North of the city, the suburbs aren't as densely populated. Most of the traffic flow is north-south - south to the city in the morning, north in the evening. The bridge crossing at the Tappan Zee or George Washington) represents a sidestep on a major road (each one is part of an Interstate highway). Traffic on the George Washington is much heavier because it's most closer to the city, and because to the east it gives onto the Cross Bronx Expressway, one of the worst roads in existence. People crossing at the GW or the two tunnels usually make allowance (a big allowance) for the traffic jams that occur every day as traffic tries to merge at the entrances. It's nothing to spend an hour trying to get into the Lincoln Tunnel at rush hour.

Another point is that not everybody drives - there's more mass transit in New York than in any other American city. There are Metro North commuter trains from north of the city (including Connecticut), Long Island Rail Road trains from the east, and New Jersey Transit trains from the west. They run frequently and they're jammed. It's hard to drive in the city and expensive to park, so many people park at commuter railroad stations, then take the train from there.

There's bus service, too, but that doesn't help the traffic situation.

Like a lot of things in New York, it can get ugly at times but everybody manages. Jon Stewart, the comedian (The Daily Show) recently said that the tunnel mergers were one of the high points of our civilization - people (mostly) follow I-go-you-go protocol and (mostly) stay calm.

As for north of the city, people do in fact drive longer distances to the bridges - but the communities up there tend to be more self-contained and there's not a lot of cross-river traffic.

Now that I'm in DC, there are no river barriers - just the Beltway and the local roads to contend with. It's worse.

Hope this makes sense of a not-always-sensible situation.

[Zommoz]

Like Alan, I grew up in NYC before moving an hours drive north a few years ago. Everything he says is true, but he left out a couple of crossings between the Poughkeepsie Bridge and the Tappan Zee. South of the Poughkeepsie crossing there is a bridge that connects Newburgh NY on the west side to Beacon NY on the east side. (While Beacon is a quaint little town, Newburgh is a pit. It has been in national news lately as the gang problems have brought the attention of the federal government.) Between that crossing and the Tappan Zee is my favorite bridge, The Bear Mountain Bridge. (http://en.wikivisual.com/images/0/09/Bear_Mtn_Bridge.jpg) I love this bridge for it's unequaled views of the Hudson Valley. It is also where the Appalachian Trail crosses the Hudson. I recently found out that it is the third most jumped off bridge in NY! The Brooklyn Bridge being number one and the Tappan Zee being second. As I live just fifteen minutes from it, I usually use it to get to the rail station nearby when I need to get to NYC. Or if I have to drive to the city, I will cross here as it only has a toll of one dollar whereas the GW Bridge costs eight!

[Brian_Gladden]

Cross Bronx Expressway, one of the worst roads in existence

Ugh! I've been on the Cross Bronx 5 or 6 times in my life... And I totally agree with you.


Brian

[Kofschip]

Ugh! I've been on the Cross Bronx 5 or 6 times in my life... And I totally agree with you.


Brian

I thought always that it was a parking lot..........:icon_lol:

[Bjoern]

The Bear Mountain Bridge. (http://en.wikivisual.com/images/0/09/Bear_Mtn_Bridge.jpg)

Wow!


Want...to...visit...United States...now...aaaaargh! :icon_lol:

[Pips]

Thanks for the comments guys.

It's fascinating how cities develop, often due to landscape limitations. And how that effects lifestyle.

Here in Oz our limitation is the bloody great desert (and low rainfall) that covers most of this continent. Which effectively restricts major city development to our coastline. For example the largest inland city in Australia is Canberra (300,000 odd). And that's still only two and a half hours drive from the coast! :)

[Alan_A]

Like Alan, I grew up in NYC before moving an hours drive north a few years ago. Everything he says is true, but he left out a couple of crossings between the Poughkeepsie Bridge and the Tappan Zee. South of the Poughkeepsie crossing there is a bridge that connects Newburgh NY on the west side to Beacon NY on the east side. (While Beacon is a quaint little town, Newburgh is a pit. It has been in national news lately as the gang problems have brought the attention of the federal government.) Between that crossing and the Tappan Zee is my favorite bridge, The Bear Mountain Bridge. (http://en.wikivisual.com/images/0/09/Bear_Mtn_Bridge.jpg) I love this bridge for it's unequaled views of the Hudson Valley. It is also where the Appalachian Trail crosses the Hudson. I recently found out that it is the third most jumped off bridge in NY! The Brooklyn Bridge being number one and the Tappan Zee being second. As I live just fifteen minutes from it, I usually use it to get to the rail station nearby when I need to get to NYC. Or if I have to drive to the city, I will cross here as it only has a toll of one dollar whereas the GW Bridge costs eight!

You're right - my miss. I grew up spending summers in Long Island, and lived for a year in Jersey City, but spent less time traveling north, so I don't have that geography under my skin.

View from the Bear Mountain Bridge is indeed great, whatever your plans when you get there...

[Alan_A]

Ugh! I've been on the Cross Bronx 5 or 6 times in my life... And I totally agree with you.


Brian

It's more than a terrible road (though it's that - cut through a trench, so it has no shoulders, which means any breakdown takes out a lane)... Because of where it was dug, it destroyed the South Bronx and created the 1960's and 1970's slum of The Bronx Is Burning years. One of Robert Moses' (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_moses)lesser achievements...

[Alan_A]

Thanks for the comments guys.

It's fascinating how cities develop, often due to landscape limitations. And how that effects lifestyle.

Here in Oz our limitation is the bloody great desert (and low rainfall) that covers most of this continent. Which effectively restricts major city development to our coastline. For example the largest inland city in Australia is Canberra (300,000 odd). And that's still only two and a half hours drive from the coast! :)

Three factors made New York City. The first was the phenomenal sheltered harbor. The second was the construction of the Erie Canal, which made the city the main transit port for goods moving from the Midwest to Europe and vice versa (it was after the opening of the canal, in the early 1830's, that New York first began to outstrip Boston, Philadelphia and Baltimore). The third is Manhattan Schist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_schist)- amazingly hard rock that let builders sink deep foundations and build highrises. The end result is a dense population living in a very small space, built vertically. That puts it on par with London and Tokyo - way more intense than anyplace else in the U.S. That's for good and for ill, too...

[Shylock]

Whats wrong with the Cross Bronx. I rather enjoy sitting there for 4 hours to travel 1/2 mile...

[Alan_A]

Whats wrong with the Cross Bronx. I rather enjoy sitting there for 4 hours to travel 1/2 mile...

True. It can be a peaceful, meditative experience if you're in the right frame of mind. No one is. But it could happen...

[GunnyG]

Wow!


Want...to...visit...United States...now...aaaaargh! :icon_lol:

Oh yeah, and there is this engineering oriented military college just north of that bridge, with all sorts of monuments to 234+ years of its alumni and the wars they participated in... they have a kick-a$$ 4th of July concert (1812 Overature with a real howitzer battery accompanying) and fireworks show.

Click to enlarge:
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