"Verrazzano Narrows" and "Verrazzano Bridge" redirect here. For the strait over which this bridge crosses, see The Narrows. For other bridges, see Verrazano Bridge (disambiguation).
Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge
View of one of the bridge's towers
View from Fort Wadsworth, Staten Island in August 2017
Coordinates 40°36′23″N 74°02′44″WCoordinates: 40°36′23″N 74°02′44″W
Carries 13 lanes of
I-278 Toll
(7 lanes on upper level: 6 fixed-direction, 1 reversible HOV lane;
6 lanes on lower level)
Crosses The Narrows
Locale New York City (Staten Island–Brooklyn), New York
Other name(s) Verrazano-Narrows Bridge
Verrazzano Bridge
Narrows Bridge
Maintained by MTA Bridges and Tunnels
Characteristics
Total length 13,700 ft (4,176 m)
Width 103 ft (31 m)
Height 693 ft (211 m)
Longest span 4,260 ft (1,298 m)
Clearance above 15 ft (4.57 m) (upper level)
14.4 ft (4.39 m) (lower level)
Clearance below 228 ft (69.5 m) at mean high water
History
Designer Othmar Ammann, Leopold Just and other engineers at Ammann & Whitney
Construction start August 13, 1959; 62 years ago
Opened November 21, 1964; 57 years ago (upper level)
June 28, 1969; 53 years ago (lower level)
Statistics
Daily traffic 202,523 (2016)[1]
Toll (Both directions) As of April 11, 2021:
$6.55 (New York E-ZPass users outside Staten Island)
$2.75 (Staten Island residents E-ZPass)
$10.17 (Tolls By Mail and non–New York E-ZPass)
$8.36 (Mid-Tier NYCSC E-Z Pass)
Location
Wikimedia | © OpenStreetMap
The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge (/vərəˈzɑːnoʊ/ vər-ə-ZAH-noh) is a suspension bridge connecting the New York City boroughs of Staten Island and Brooklyn. It spans the Narrows, a body of water linking the relatively enclosed Upper New York Bay with Lower New York Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. It is the only fixed crossing of the Narrows. The double-deck bridge carries 13 lanes of Interstate 278, with seven lanes on the upper level and six on the lower level. The span is named for Giovanni da Verrazzano, who in 1524 was the first European explorer to enter New York Harbor and the Hudson River.

Engineer David B. Steinman proposed a bridge across the Narrows in the late 1920s, but plans were deferred over the next twenty years. A 1920s attempt to build a Staten Island Tunnel was aborted, as was a 1930s plan for vehicular tubes underneath the Narrows. Discussion of a tunnel resurfaced in the mid-1930s and early 1940s, but the plans were again denied. In the late 1940s, urban planner Robert Moses championed a bridge across the Narrows as a way to connect Staten Island with the rest of the city. Various problems delayed the start of construction until 1959. Designed by Othmar Ammann, Leopold Just and other engineers at Ammann & Whitney, the bridge opened on November 21, 1964, and a lower deck in 1969 to alleviate high levels of traffic. The New York City government began a $1.5 billion reconstruction of the bridge's two decks in 2014.

The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge has a central span of 4,260 feet (1.30 km; 0.81 mi). It was the longest suspension bridge in the world until it was surpassed by the Humber Bridge in the United Kingdom in 1981. The bridge has the 18th-longest main span in the world, as well as the longest in the Americas. When the bridge was officially named in 1960, it was misspelled "Verrazano-Narrows Bridge" due to an error in the construction contract; the name was officially corrected in 2018. The Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge collects tolls in both directions, although only westbound drivers paid a toll from 1986 to 2020 in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion.

A bridge across the Narrows had been proposed as early as 1926 or 1engineer David B. Steinman brought up the possibility of such a crossing.[2]: 135 [3] At the timfrom the rest of New York City, and its only direct connection to the other four boroughs was by the Staten Island Ferry to South Ferry in Manhattan, or 39th and 69th Streets in Brooklyn.[4] In 1928, when the chambers of commerce in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and Staten Island announced that the Interboro Bridge Company had proposed the future construction of the "Liberty Bridge" to the United States Department of War. The bridge's towers would be 800 feet (240 m) high and it would cost $60 million in 1928 dollars.[2]: 136 [5] In November 1929, engineers released plans for the 4,500-foot (1,400 m) Liberty Bridge spanning the Narrows,[6] with 800-foot-tall towers.[7] It was hoped that the new construction would spur development on Staten Island, along with the Outerbridge Crossing and the Bayonne Bridge, which were under construction at the time.[8]

The Liberty Bridge would carry vehicles from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, to an as-yet-undetermined location on Staten Island.[8] On the Brooklyn side, the city planned to connect the Liberty Bridge to a "Crosstown Highway", spanning Brooklyn and Queens and connecting to the proposed Triborough Bridge in northwestern Queens. The city also envisioned a possible connection to the preexisting Manhattan Bridge, conne

свернуть