page_title: Triborough Bridge
section_title: Funding
hierarchical_section_title: Triborough Bridge / History / Funding
caption_attribution_description: A Bridges and Tunnels Maintainer took this photo, of the Robert F. Kennedy Bridge's Queens span at sunrise, while bicycling around Randall’s Island during a break. Photo: Marvin Springer, MTA / Bridges and Tunnels
context_page_description: The Triborough Bridge is a complex of bridges and elevated expressway viaducts in New York City. The bridges link the boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, and the Bronx. The viaducts cross Randalls and Wards Islands, which were previously two islands but are now joined by landfill.
  The Triborough Bridge, a toll bridge, carries Interstate 278 as well as the unsigned highway New York State Route 900G. It connects with the FDR Drive and the Harlem River Drive in Manhattan, the Bruckner Expressway and the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx, and the Grand Central Parkway and Astoria Boulevard in Queens.
  The three primary bridges of the Triborough Bridge complex are:
  The vertical-lift bridge over Harlem River, the largest in the world, connecting Manhattan to Randalls Island
  The truss bridge over Bronx Kill, connecting Randalls Island to the Bronx
  The suspension bridge over Hell Gate, connecting Wards Island to Astoria in Queens
  These three bridges are connected by an elevated highway viaduct across Randalls and Wards Islands and 14 miles of support roads. The viaduct includes a smaller span across the former site of Little Hell Gate, which separated Randalls and Wards Islands.
context_section_description: The Tri-Borough Bridge project finally received funding in June 1925, when the city appropriated $50,000 for surveys, test borings and structural plans. Work started on a tentative design for the bridge. By December 1926, the $50,000 allotment had been spent on bores. Around the same time, the proposal to convert the Hell Gate Bridge resurfaced. Albert Goldman, the Commissioner of Plant and Structures, had finished a tentative report for the Tri-Borough Bridge by that time; however, it was not immediately submitted to the New York City Board of Estimate as a result of a reorganization of the city's proposed budget. Goldman finally published the report in March 1927, stating that the bridge was estimated to cost $24.6 million. He explained that the Hell Gate Bridge only had enough space for five lanes of roadway, so a new bridge would have to be constructed parallel to it.
  Though two mayoral committees endorsed the Tri-Borough plan, as did several merchants' associations, construction was delayed for a year because of a lack of funds. However, the Board of Estimate did approve $150,000 for preliminary borings and soundings. Following this, in September 1927, a group of entrepreneurs proposed to fund the bridge privately. Under this plan, the bridge would be set up as a toll bridge, and ownership would be transferred to the city once the bridge was paid for. In August 1928, Mayor Jimmy Walker received a similar proposal from the Long Island Board of Commerce to build the Tri-Borough Bridge using $32 million of private capital. The Queens Chamber of Commerce also favored setting up tolls on the bridge to pay for its construction. Yet another plan called for financing the bridge using proceeds from a bond issue, which would also pay for the proposed Queens–Midtown Tunnel.
  The Tri-Borough Bridge was being planned in conjunction with the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway, which would create a continuous highway between the Bronx and Brooklyn with a southward extension over The Narrows to Staten Island. In January 1929, New York City aldermanic president Joseph V. McKee endorsed the bridge, saying there was enough funding to begin one of four proposed bridges on the expressway's route. The newly elected borough president of Queens, George U. Harvey, also endorsed the bridge, as did Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce leader George Vincent McLaughlin. Trade groups petitioned Mayor Walker to take up the bridge's construction. By the end of the month, Walker acquiesced, and he had included both the Tri-Borough Bridge and a tunnel under the Narrows in his 10-year traffic program. The preliminary borings were completed by late February 1929. The results of the preliminary borings showed that the bedrock in the ground underneath the proposed bridge was sufficient to support the spans' foundations.
  In early March, the Board of Estimate voted to start construction on the bridge and on the Narrows tunnel once funding was obtained. The same month, the board allocated $3 million toward the bridge's construction. Separately, the Board of Estimate voted to create an authority to impose toll charges on both crossings. In April 1929, the New York state legislature voted to approve the Tri-Borough Bridge as well as a prison on Rikers Island before adjourning for the fiscal year. The same month, New York state governor Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the bill to approve the relocation of about 700 beds in Wards Island's mental hospital, which were in the way of the proposed bridge's suspension span to Queens. The New York state legislature later approved a bill that provided for the relocation of the Queens span's Wards Island end, 1,100 feet (340 m) to the west, thereby preserving hospital buildings from demolition.
  The bridge was ultimately planned to cost $24 million and was planned to start construction in August 1929. By July, the groundbreaking was scheduled for September. The preliminary Triborough Bridge proposal comprised four bridges: a suspension span across the East River to Queens; a truss span across Bronx Kill to the Bronx; a fixed span across th
caption: Queens suspension span over the East River, seen at sunrise
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