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35-990: The Franklin Delano Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge is a toll suspension bridge which carries US 44 and NY 55 across the Hudson River between Poughkeepsie and Highland in the state of New York . Proposals for the Mid-Hudson span were made by state legislature in 1923. Although the Bear Mountain Bridge in Orange County, New York and the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan were under construction, there were then no fixed highway crossings south of Albany . Then- Governor of New York Alfred E. Smith signed

70-512: A New York State Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1983. The bridge was renamed the "Franklin Delano Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge" in 1994. In 2009, composer Joseph Bertolozzi completed Bridge Music , a project which allows listeners to hear the Mid-Hudson bridge played like a musical instrument. The work was created for New York's 400th anniversary observance of Henry Hudson 's voyage up

105-478: A bridge, they hoped to recoup their investment by charging tolls for people, animals, vehicles, and goods to cross it. The original London Bridge across the river Thames opened as a toll bridge, but an accumulation of funds by the charitable trust that operated the bridge ( Bridge House Estates ) saw that the charges were dropped. Using interest on its capital assets, the trust now owns and runs all seven central London bridges at no cost to taxpayers or users. In

140-490: A computer-controlled LED decorative lighting system attached to the suspension cables, allowing the bridge to be decorated for Christmas (red, green) or the Fourth of July (red, white, and blue), and for other holidays. In 2019, the bridge authority announced that tolls on its Hudson River crossings would increase each year beginning in 2020 and ending in 2023. As of May 1, 2021 the toll for passenger cars traveling eastbound on

175-569: A dedicated source of funds for ongoing maintenance and improvements. Sometimes citizens revolt against toll plazas, as was the case in Jacksonville, Florida . Tolls were in place on four bridges crossing the St. Johns River, including I-95. These tolls paid for the respective bridges as well as many other highway projects. As Jacksonville continued to grow, the tolls created bottlenecks on the roadway. In 1988, Jacksonville voters chose to eliminate all

210-466: A form of triple taxation, and that toll collection is a very inefficient means of funding the development of highway infrastructure. Nakamura and Kockelman (2002) show that tolls are by nature regressive, shifting the burden of taxation disproportionately to the poor and middle classes. Electronic toll collection , branded under names such as EZ-Pass, SunPass, IPass, FasTrak, Treo, GoodToGo, and 407ETR, became increasingly prevalent to metropolitan areas in

245-402: A region may incur e-toll tag fees imposed by their rental car company. The Paperwork Reduction Act of 1980 identified and attempted to address a similar problem associated with the government collection of information. Approvals were to be secured by government agencies before promulgating a paper form, website, survey or electronic submission that will impose an information collection burden on

280-413: Is a localized disruption of vehicular traffic on a street, road, or highway. As opposed to a traffic jam , a bottleneck is a result of a specific physical condition, often the design of the road, badly timed traffic lights , or sharp curves. They can also be caused by temporary situations, such as vehicular accidents. Bottlenecks can also occur in other methods of transportation. Capacity bottlenecks are

315-404: Is an example of how bottlenecks can be induced by psychological factors; for example, vehicles safely pulled to the shoulder by a police car often result in passing drivers to slow down to "get a better look" at the situation. Traffic flow theory can be used to model and represent bottlenecks. Consider a stretch of highway with two lanes in one direction. Suppose that the fundamental diagram

350-434: Is generally closed, except for rush hour traffic eastbound from 6am to 9am, and westbound from 3pm to 6pm. The center lane is also occasionally opened when work is being done on either side of the bridge. Five lane signals (referred to as "gantries" by NYSBA) indicate which lanes are open for travel. Approaches on either side of the bridge are four lanes, causing a bottleneck going onto the one- or two-lane span. The bridge has

385-410: Is modeled as shown here. The highway has a peak capacity of Q vehicles per hour, corresponding to a density of k c  vehicles per mile. The highway normally becomes jammed at k j vehicles per mile. Before capacity is reached, traffic may flow at A  vehicles per hour, or a higher B  vehicles per hour. In either case, the speed of vehicles is v f (or "free flow"), because

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420-409: Is represented with a dotted arrow line. The diagram can readily represent vehicular delay and queue length. It is a simple matter of taking horizontal and vertical measurements within the region of state  D . For this example, consider three lanes of traffic in one direction. Assume that a truck starts traveling at speed  v , more slowly than at the free-flow speed  v f . As shown on

455-444: Is slower than speed  v f . But once drivers have navigated around the truck, they can again speed up and transition to downstream state  D . While this state travels at free flow, the vehicle density is less because fewer vehicles get around the bottleneck. [REDACTED] Suppose that, at time  t , the truck slows from the free-flow rate to v . A queue builds behind the truck, represented by state  U . Within

490-637: The James River , and the 4.5-mile long James River Bridge 80 miles downstream which carries U.S. Highway 17 across the river of the same name near its mouth at Hampton Roads . In other cases, especially major facilities such as the Chesapeake Bay Bridge near Annapolis, Maryland , and the George Washington Bridge over Hudson River between New York City and New Jersey , the continued collection of tolls provides

525-402: The fundamental diagram below, speed  q u represents the reduced capacity (two-thirds of Q , i.e., 2 out of 3 lanes available) around the truck. State  A represents normal approaching traffic flow, again at speed  v f . State  U , with flowrate  q u , corresponds to the queuing upstream of the truck. On the fundamental diagram, vehicle speed  v u

560-432: The "Toll Collect" syndicate after much negative publicity. The term "Toll Collect" became a popular byword among Germans used to describe everything wrong with their national economy. It has become increasingly common for a toll bridge to only charge a fee in one direction. This helps reduce the traffic congestion in the other direction, and generally does not significantly reduce revenue, especially when those travelling

595-669: The 21st century. Amy Finkelstien, a public finance economist at MIT, reports that as the fraction of drivers using electronic toll collection increased, typically toll rates increased as well, because people were less aware of how much they were paying in tolls. Electronic tolling proposals that represented the shadow price of electronic toll collection (instead of the TSC) may have misled decision-makers. The general public has additionally endured an increased administrative burden associated with paying toll bills and navigating toll collection company on-line billing systems. Additionally, visitors to

630-633: The Hudson. Originally intended to be a live performance piece, this "audacious plan" to compose music for a suspension bridge using the bridge itself as the instrument brought Bertolozzi wide international attention. A recording of the results, the 2009 CD "Bridge Music" (on the Delos label DE1045), entered the Billboard Classical Crossover Music Chart at #18, and has been released globally. At midnight on March 1, 2022,

665-641: The Mid-Hudson Bridge was $ 1.75 in cash, $ 1.45 for E-ZPass users. In May 2022 tolls rose to $ 1.55 for E-ZPass users and $ 2 for cash payers. In 2023, the E-ZPass toll increased to $ 1.65, and the cash toll rose to $ 2.15 Toll bridge The practice of collecting tolls on bridges harks back to the days of ferry crossings where people paid a fee to be ferried across stretches of water. As boats became impractical to carry large loads, ferry operators looked for new sources of revenue. Having built

700-495: The United States, private ownership of toll bridges peaked in the mid-19th century, and by the turn of the 20th century most toll bridges were taken over by state highway departments. In some instances, a quasi-governmental authority was formed, and toll revenue bonds were issued to raise funds for construction or operation (or both) of the facility. Peters and Kramer observed that "little research has been done to quantify

735-693: The bill in June 1923. Construction would be undertaken by the New York State Department of Public Works (now the New York State Department of Transportation ). Construction began in 1925. Caissons weighing 66,000 tons were sunk into the riverbed; dirt was removed by crews working in a pressurized environment. The 315-foot-tall (96 m) Gothic steel towers were constructed in April 1929. Three years after opening, ownership

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770-424: The bridge was converted to all-electronic tolling in the eastbound direction. The bridge is 3,000 feet (910 m) long with a clearance of 135 feet (41 m) above the Hudson. At opening, it was the sixth-longest suspension bridge in the world . The chief engineer was Polish immigrant Ralph Modjeski , who had previously engineered the strengthening of the nearby Poughkeepsie Railroad bridge . Primary contractor

805-484: The financial stress of lost toll revenue to the authority determining the levy. One such example of shunpiking as a form of boycott occurred at the James River Bridge in eastern Virginia . After years of lower-than-anticipated revenues on the narrow privately funded structure built in 1928, the state of Virginia finally purchased the facility in 1949 and increased the tolls in 1955 without visibly improving

840-425: The fundamental diagram. Downstream of the bottleneck, vehicles transition to state  D' , where they again travel at free-flow speed  v f . Once vehicles arrive at rate  A starting at time  t 1 , the queue will begin to clear and eventually dissipate. State  A has a flowrate below the one-lane capacity of states  D and D' . On the time-space diagram, a sample vehicle trajectory

875-555: The general public. However, the act did not anticipate and thus address the burden on the public associated with funding infrastructure via electronic toll collection instead of through more traditional forms of taxation. In some instances, tolls have been removed after retirement of the toll revenue bonds issued to raise funds. Examples include the Robert E. Lee Memorial Bridge in Richmond, Virginia which carries U.S. Route 1 across

910-472: The impact of toll collection on society as a whole" and therefore they published a comprehensive analysis of the Total Societal Cost (TSC) associated with toll collection as a means of taxation. TSC is the sum of administrative, compliance, fuel and pollution costs. In 2000 they estimated it to be $ 56,914,732, or 37.3% of revenue collected. They also found that a user of a toll road is subject to

945-426: The lighter flowrate  A . Before the first vehicles reach location  x 0 , the traffic flow is unimpeded. However, downstream of x 0 , the roadway narrows, reducing the capacity by half—and to below that of state  B . Due to this, vehicles will begin queuing upstream of x 0 . This is represented by high-density state  D . The vehicle speed in this state is the slower v d , as taken from

980-500: The most vulnerable points in a network and are very often the subject of offensive or defensive military actions. Capacity bottlenecks of strategic importance - such as the Panama Canal where traffic is limited by the infrastructure - are normally referred to as choke points ; capacity bottlenecks of tactical value are referred to as mobility corridors . Traffic bottlenecks are caused by a wide variety of things: Rubbernecking

1015-416: The one direction are forced to come back over the same or a different toll bridge. A practice known as shunpiking evolved which entails finding another route for the specific purpose of avoiding payment of tolls. In some situations where the tolls were increased or felt to be unreasonably high, informal shunpiking by individuals escalated into a form of boycott by regular users, with the goal of applying

1050-536: The roadway is under capacity. Now, suppose that at a certain location  x 0 , the highway narrows to one lane. The maximum capacity is now limited to D ’, or half of Q , since only one lane of the two is available. State  D shares the same flow rate as state  D' , but its vehicular density is higher. Using a time-space diagram, we may model the bottleneck event. Suppose that at time  t 0 , traffic begins to flow at rate  B and speed  v f . After time  t 1 , vehicles arrive at

1085-464: The roadway, with the notable exception of a new toll plaza. The increased toll rates incensed the public and business users alike. Joseph W. Luter Jr. , head of Smithfield Packing Company , the producer of Smithfield Hams , ordered his truck drivers to take a different route and cross a smaller and cheaper bridge. Tolls continued for 20 more years, and were finally removed from the old bridge in 1976. Bottleneck (traffic) A traffic bottleneck

Mid-Hudson Bridge - Misplaced Pages Continue

1120-593: The toll booths and replace the revenue with a ½ cent sales tax increase. In 1989, the toll booths were removed, 36 years after the first toll booth went up. In Scotland , the Scottish Parliament purchased the Skye Bridge from its owners in late 2004, ending the requirement to pay an unpopular expensive toll to cross to Skye from the mainland. In 2004, the German government cancelled a contract with

1155-548: The toll was abolished for westbound drivers, and at the same time, eastbound drivers saw their tolls doubled. The tolls of eleven other New York–New Jersey and Hudson River crossings along a 130-mile (210 km) stretch, from the Outerbridge Crossing in the south to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in the north, were also changed to eastbound-only at that time. The Mid-Hudson Bridge was designated as

1190-527: Was the American Bridge Company of Ambridge, Pennsylvania with steel from Carnegie. The span contains stiffening trusses intentionally constructed on top of the deck instead of below the deck. The bridge carries three lanes of US 44 and NY 55 and a pedestrian/bicycle walkway over the Hudson . The bridge allows connections to US 9 on the east side, and US 9W to the west. The center lane

1225-682: Was transferred to the New York State Bridge Authority in 1933, shortly after the Authority was created. Then-Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor attended the opening ceremony on August 25, 1930. The toll plaza was originally located on the eastern side of the bridge, but was moved to the western side in Ulster County when a new highway approach was opened on December 20, 1967. Originally, tolls were collected in both directions. In August 1970,

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