Tappan Zee Was Born of Insanity and Lives On In Insanity

Today, one of my favorite bloggers, Mark Perry, highlights a tidbit from my very own neck of the woods, and educates me in the process. The Tappan Zee Bridge is a godawful, terrible piece of infrastructure not worthy of an advanced society, but it is crucial nonetheless. (Note: it is not even good for killing yourself, numerous people jump off it every year in an attempt to end their lives and yet fail to die.) The story, of which I was unaware, of why the bridge was built in precisely the wrong spot is illuminating although not surprising.

If the bridge had been built just a bit south of its current location — that is, if it had been built across a narrower stretch of the river — it would have been in the territory that belonged to the Port Authority.

As a result, the Port Authority — not the State of New York — would have gotten the revenue from tolls on the bridge. And Dewey needed that toll revenue to fund the rest of the Thruway.

So Dewey was stuck with a three-mile-long bridge.

I have blogged about the Tappan Zee before. What is interesting to me is that it is a perfect representation of the inefficiency, corruption and all-around disastrous management capacity of government in general and the State of New York in particular. The cost estimate for a new Tappan Zee Bridge is about 30 times (before virtually guaranteed overruns) the cost of a modern miracle of engineering that the French just put up - the (rather gorgeous, IMHO) Millau Viaduct.