THE GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE OPENS TO TRAFFIC

The Grandma is immersed in reading. Today, she has gone to the library to search some information about The George Washington Bridge, which was inaugurated on a day like today in 1931.

Before going to the public library, The Grandma has studied a new lesson of her First Certificate Language Practice manual (Vocabulary 20).

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The George Washington Bridge is a double-decked suspension bridge spanning the Hudson River and connecting between the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City with the borough of Fort Lee in New Jersey.

The George Washington Bridge

As of 2016, the George Washington Bridge carried over 103 million vehicles per year, making it the world's busiest motor vehicle bridge. It is owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bi-state government agency that operates infrastructure in the Port of New York area.

The George Washington Bridge is also informally known as the GW Bridge, the GWB, the GW, or the George, and formerly as the Fort Lee Bridge or Hudson River Bridge.

A bridge across the Hudson River was first conceived in 1906. In early 1925, the state legislatures of New York and New Jersey voted to allow for the planning and construction of such a bridge. Construction on the George Washington Bridge started in October 1927; the bridge was ceremonially dedicated on October 24, 1931, and opened to traffic the next day.

More information: Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

The opening of the George Washington Bridge contributed to the development of Bergen County, New Jersey, in which Fort Lee is located. The current upper deck was widened from six to eight lanes in 1946. The six-lane lower deck was constructed beneath the existing span from 1958 to 1962 because of increasing traffic flow.

The George Washington Bridge, an important travel corridor within the New York metropolitan area, has an upper level that carries four lanes in each direction and a lower level with three lanes in each direction, for a total of 14 lanes of travel. The speed limit on the bridge is 72 km/h. The bridge's upper level also carries pedestrian and bicycle traffic. US 46, which lies entirely within New Jersey, terminates halfway across the bridge at the state border with New York. At its eastern terminus in New York City, the bridge continues onto the Trans-Manhattan Expressway, part of I-95, connecting to the Cross Bronx Expressway.

The George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge was designed by chief civil engineer Othmar Ammann, design engineer Allston Dana, and assistant chief engineer Edward W. Stearns, with Cass Gilbert as consulting architect. 

It connects Fort Lee, New Jersey, with Washington Heights, Manhattan, New York. The bridge carries 14 lanes of traffic, seven in each direction, on two levels; the upper level contains eight lanes while the lower level contains six lanes. The current upper level opened in 1931, and is 27 m wide. The upper level originally had six lanes, though two more lanes were added in 1946. Although the lower level was part of the original plans for the bridge, it did not open until 1962.

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The upper level has a vertical clearance of 4.3 m, and all trucks and other oversize vehicles must use the upper level. Trucks are banned from the lower level, which has a clearance of 4.1 m. All lanes on both levels are 2.59 m wide. Vehicles carrying hazardous materials  are prohibited on the lower level due to its enclosed nature. HAZMAT-carrying vehicles may use the upper level, provided that they conform to strict guidelines as outlined in the Port Authority's Red Book.

There are two sidewalks on the upper span of the bridge, one on each side. However, cyclists and pedestrians can usually only utilize the southern sidewalk.

The George Washington Bridge measures 1,450 m long and has a main span of 1,100 m. Accounting for the height of the lower deck, the bridge stretches 65 m above mean high water at its center, and 59 m above mean high water under the New York anchorage. The bridge's main span was the longest main bridge span in the world at the time of its opening in 1931, and was nearly double the 560 m of the previous record holder, the Ambassador Bridge in Detroit. It held this title until the opening of the Golden Gate Bridge in 1937.

The George Washington Bridge

The George Washington Bridge's total width is 36 m. The suspension towers on each side of the river are each 184 m tall. 

The bridge also contains two anchorages for the main cables. The anchorage on the New York side is a concrete structure, while the anchorage on the New Jersey side is bored directly into the cliff of the Palisades.

The George Washington Bridge is supported by a total of 105,986 wires. There are four main cables, which suspend the upper deck and are held up by the suspension towers. Each main cable contained 61 strands, with each strand made of 434 individual wires, for a total of 26,474 wires per main cable. The cables were then covered by a sheath of weather-resistant steel. The bridge uses a wire-cable design of suspension, wherein the vertical suspender wires are attached directly to the main cables and the deck directly.

More information: New Jersey Monthly

The original design for the George Washington Bridge's suspension towers called for them to be encased in concrete and granite. The granite was supposed to help support the steel structure of the towers, but because this design was yet untested, Ammann ultimately decided that the structure of the towers should be made entirely of steel, with the granite serving only as a facade.

The towers would have also contained elevators to carry sightseers to the top of each tower. However, the facades were postponed as a cost-cutting measure after the start of the Great Depression in 1929, midway through the bridge's construction. The entire weight of the bridge was supported by the steel structure, and the purely decorative masonry could be added at a later date. 

The George Washington Bridge

Even though the steel towers had been left that way for cost reasons, aesthetic critiques of the bare steel towers were favorable. Several groups, such as the American Institute of Steel Construction, believed that covering the steel framework with masonry would be both misleading and fundamentally ugly.

The masonry facades were ultimately never built; the exposed steel towers, with their distinctive criss-crossed bracing, have become one of the George Washington Bridge's most identifiable characteristics.

Since 1947 or 1948, the bridge has flown the world's largest free-flying American flag, measuring at 27 m long, 18 m wide, and 200 kg. Until 1976, the flag was taken out of a garage in New Jersey and manually erected on national holidays. During the United States' bicentennial, a mechanical hoisting system was installed, and the flag was stored along the bridge's girders when not in use.

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It is hoisted on special occasions when weather allows, and appears on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, Presidents Day, Memorial Day, Flag Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Columbus Day, and Veterans Day. 

Governors of New Jersey and New York

Since 2006, the flag is also flown on September 11 of each year, honoring those lost in the September 11 attacks. On events where the flag is flown, the tower lights are lit from dusk until 11:59 p.m.

Emergency Medical Services are provided by the Port Authority's Tunnel and Bridge Agents, who periodically conduct drills on the bridge.

The bridge sits near the sites of Fort Washington in New York and Fort Lee in New Jersey, which were fortified positions used by General George Washington and his American forces as they attempted to deter the occupation of New York City in 1776 during the American Revolutionary War. Unsuccessful, Washington evacuated Manhattan by crossing between the two forts.

The George Washington Bridge was dedicated on October 24, 1931, with a ceremony attended by 30,000 guests. The opening ceremony was accompanied by a show from military airplanes, as well as speeches from politicians including New Jersey governor Morgan Foster Larson and New York governor Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The first people to cross the George Washington Bridge were reportedly two elementary school students who roller-skated across the bridge from the New York side. Pedestrians were allowed to walk the length of the George Washington Bridge between 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. The bridge was formally opened to traffic the next day.

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I find that it's best to take one step at a time 

and cross each bridge as they come to you. 

Michael Stuhlbarg