page_title: Lincoln Tunnel
section_title: Later years
hierarchical_section_title: Lincoln Tunnel / History / Later years
context_page_description: The Lincoln Tunnel is an approximately 1.5-mile-long tunnel under the Hudson River, connecting Weehawken, New Jersey, to the west with Midtown Manhattan in New York City to the east. It was designed by Ole Singstad and named after Abraham Lincoln. The tunnel consists of three vehicular tubes of varying lengths, with two traffic lanes in each tube. The center tube contains reversible lanes, while the northern and southern tubes exclusively carry westbound and eastbound traffic, respectively.
  The Lincoln Tunnel was originally proposed in the late 1920s and early 1930s as the Midtown Hudson Tunnel. The tubes of the Lincoln Tunnel were constructed in stages between 1934 and 1957. Construction of the central tube, which originally lacked sufficient funding due to the Great Depression, started in 1934 and it opened in 1937. The northern tube started construction in 1936, was delayed due to World War II-related material shortages, and opened in 1945. Although the original plans for the Lincoln Tunnel called for two tubes, a third tube to the south of the existing tunnels was planned in 1950 due to high traffic demand on the other two tubes.
context_section_description: As traffic increased through the tubes, the Port Authority tried various methods to mitigate tunnel congestion. In February 1957, it started training "spotters" to look at traffic on the Manhattan side's tunnel approaches from the 35th floor of 330 West 42nd Street, located nearby. The Port Authority started using two-way radios in mid-1958. In 1966–1967, the Port Authority installed closed-circuit television systems to monitor and control the spacing of traffic in the Lincoln and Holland Tunnels. Port Authority officers observed Lincoln Tunnel traffic from a control center on the New Jersey side. Patrolmen were stationed within each tube to watch out for stalled vehicles, and a computerized system also monitored traffic flows in each tube. In December 1970, the Port Authority tested out an exclusive bus lane for one year, and it became so popular that the bus lane was later made permanent.
  In 1971, the elephants of the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus walked through the Lincoln Tunnel. The animals were normally taken via railroad, but a labor strike had suspended all rail service to Madison Square Garden. The elephants started walking through the Queens–Midtown Tunnel instead of the Lincoln Tunnel starting in 1981, and the elephant walk ceased altogether when the elephants were retired in 2016.
  Originally, the northern and center tubes were paved using bricks, while the southern tube contained an asphalt surface. The brick road surfaces began to deteriorate over time, and in 1967–1968, the northern and center tubes were repaved with asphalt. By 1971, Lincoln Tunnel was carrying 32 million vehicles per year. From the Lincoln Tunnel's opening until 1970, the Port Authority charged the same flat-rate toll of 50 cents in each direction. Westbound tolls were removed in 1970, and the tolls for eastbound drivers were doubled to offset the loss of the westbound tolls.
  The Port Authority started repaving the Lincoln Tunnel's center tube in the early 1980s, in preparation for a renovation of the Holland Tunnel that was slated to start in 1984. Due to the renovation project, the Holland Tunnel's tubes would be closed one at a time for two and a half years, and traffic would be diverted to the Lincoln Tunnel. After the Holland Tunnel renovation was done, the Lincoln Tunnel's north and south tubes would be repaved. Each repaving was set to cost $10 million. The repair work on the Lincoln Tunnel's center tube cost $2 million more than projected, and took five times as long as initially estimated, because repaving only occurred at night. In 1989, during the rehabilitation and repaving of the northern tube, a computerized traffic-control center was built in the administration building on the New Jersey side, which allowed a tunnel controller inside the building to remotely control the flow of traffic to, from, and through Lincoln Tunnel. The computerized system was connected to 73 cameras that captured video of the entirety of the three tubes. Cellphone service was added to the tubes in 1995 as part of a $1.2 million project funded by the telecommunications company Cellular One.
  A major overhaul of the center tube started in 1996 at a cost of $53 million. This construction included replacing tiles, wire ducts, curbs, doors, and other infrastructure. The same year, the Port Authority board also voted to renovate the toll plaza for $42 million. After the September 11 attacks in 2001, drivers with no passengers were temporarily banned from going through the Lincoln Tunnel during weekday mornings, due to traffic gridlock that resulted from the collapse of the World Trade Center. This ban was partially repealed in April 2002.
caption: Aerial view of the Manhattan approaches in 1973
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