A pair of pedestrian bridges under construction in Battery Park City and the Financial District appear to be slipping behind schedule. The first of these is the West Thames bridge, which will eventually connect Battery Park City to the Financial District, beside the entrance plaza to the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.
In the most recent public review about this project, delivered at the June meeting of the Battery Park City Committee of Community Board 1 (CB1), representatives or the City’s Economic Development Corporation (EDC), which is overseeing the project, reported that the bridge’s two central span — which are being fabricated offsite, as a time-saving measure, so that they can be brought to Lower Manhattan and dropped into place and assembled in the course of a few days — would be delivered in either the third or fourth quarters of 2017. This would, they assured CB1 members, permit the bridge to open by June 30, 2018.
But at the October 23 board meeting of the Battery Park City Authority (BPCA), Catherine McVay Hughes asked about the timing of the demolition of the nearby Rector Street pedestrian bridge, which the West Thames span is meant to replace. This sequencing of this part of the project was initially controversial, because EDC initially planned (as a cost-saving strategy) to demolish the existing, Rector Street bridge, before the new span at West Thames Street opened. That plan elicited strong protest from CB1 members earlier this year, who were concerned that the interim period (when no bridge would be available over West Street) would leave elderly and disabled users, as well as parents with small children, with no safe way to cross the eight lanes of West Street. This controversy was resolved last spring, when the BPCA announced that the Rector Street bridge would remain in place until the West Thames bridge opened.
Ms. McVay Hughes raised this question at the October 23 BPCA board meeting, asking, “can we have an update on Rector Street Bridge, when it may be coming down?.” Gwen Dawson, the Authority’s vice president for real property, answered, “it is likely to be some time in the second half of 2018.” She added that EDC was, “still working on the schedule. They had to push back the West Thames schedule somewhat, so that instead of getting the bridge delivered this fall, it’s going to be delivered in the spring. They have finalized the new schedule, but we haven’t gotten in yet.”
This delay represents a further slippage from the project’s previously announced schedule. The West Thames bridge began construction on November 15, 2016. A few weeks before ground was broken, Matt Krenek, an engineer with Skanska USA (the outside firm managing the project) walked CB1 members through the then- current plan told CB1 members, “we’ll be constructing the bridge truss itself, off-site. We hope to be erecting it in the summer of next year” — meaning July or August of 2017 — “and have the bridge itself finished by the first quarter of 2018.” By the June, 2017 meeting of CB1’s Battery Park City Committee, this target had slipped to, “the second quarter of 2018,” according to Mr. Krenek. But that expectation appears to have been predicated upon the plan to have the trusses for the bridge delivered to the site, “in the second of third quarter of this year,” in the words of EDC officials. A new, projected date for completion of the West Thames bridge has not been announced.
An architect’s rendering of the new pedestrian bridge planned to cross the plaza of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, at Morris Street.
The second Lower Manhattan pedestrian span that appears to be falling behind schedule is the Morris Street bridge, which will cross the plaza of the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel, behind the Battery Parking Garage. The original bridge, which had been constructed in 1947, was closed and demolished in July of this year. At the time, MTA officials assured local leaders that its replacement would open, “before the end of 2017.” There has been no visible construction activity related to a new bridge at this site since early August, however. This appears to raise questions about when the new span (without which, pedestrians are forced to walk several blocks out of their way) will open. A spokesman for the MTA did not respond to requests for clarification.