The Other Side Of The Bridge(gate)

While the now-infamous closure of Fort Lee’s access roads to the George Washington Bridge and subsequent cover-up have drawn universal shock and made New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a target for late-night TV ridicule, Washington Heights had another reason for reacting with anger to the scandal that will be remembered as “Bridgegate.” 

That’s because while New Jersey political appointees at the Port Authority were quick to explain the abuse of public infrastructure to settle on a hastily invented “traffic study,” our community has been calling on the agency with increasing urgency to conduct a real one for years. 

In northern Manhattan, conditions at the George Washington Bridge have an immediate, tangible impact on the surrounding neighborhood—when New York-bound traffic from the bridge to the Cross-Bronx Expressway piles up, local streets become more dangerous. Drivers exiting the bridge search for city streets they can cut through while maintaining highway speeds. And idling Jersey-bound traffic on the Manhattan side exacerbates air and noise pollution levels. All this without a single traffic cop in sight to manage things. In an area that already has higher rates of pedestrian fatalities and more than the citywide average of childhood asthma, the consequences of manipulating traffic on the bridge are real and harmful. 

Bridgegate didn’t only remind Washington Heights residents of our current problems—it heightened fears about the future of the facility. Over the next decade, the Port Authority will spend more than $1 billion on the 181st Street bus terminal at the base of the bridge, which includes the GWB’s restringing with new suspension cables. 

Although ultimately beneficial, these projects are going to be disruptive. Had the Bridgegate scandal occurred farther along in the construction process, my constituents would have suffered more than the Fort Lee residents Christie administration officials were seeking to punish. 

Before this work begins in full, we have the opportunity to put safeguards in place to make construction less disruptive, and the end result more reflective of Washington Heights’ needs. We can boost participation from MWBE- and locally-owned businesses that may otherwise experience hardship during this period. We can secure a much needed cultural space in the new terminal to support uptown’s thriving arts community. We can ensure that the GWB’s bicycle paths remain open during the bridge’s recabling so cyclists commuting to work or riding for exercise won’t lose this amenity. And we can conduct a traffic study—a real one—so that an informed strategy for keeping pedestrians safe via traffic enforcement and minimizing the hardship for local residents can take shape. 

In the aftermath of this scandal, I will push for a more transparent and community-responsive agency: reorganizing the authority’s New York and New Jersey appointees currently operating in state-based silos under one chain of command, and insulating staff and board members from partisan politics. But for the community at the other end of the bridge that was also placed at risk during this incident, the next step must include solving these neighborhood problems before this megaproject begins.