Natalie Tyler with an extreme make-over courtesy of NYC DOT's bridge engineers

In December 2002, the New York City Department of Transportation opened up a new pedestrian and bike path on the Williamsburg Bridge after a four-year, $50 million renovation. While the new path could easily have been a huge feather in DOT's cap, it has instead become a source of injuries, embarrassment and lawsuits.

The problem is that on the Manhattan side of the bridge, the 18-foot-wide path is crossed by a series of two-inch-high steel expansion joints. They are sharp, jolting, cyclist speed bumps: 26 in all. Complaints about the bumps came fast and loud, and a few weeks after the path's opening, Noah Budnick, Transportation Alternatives' projects director, sent a letter to DOT warning that they would "cause cyclists to lose control of their bikes and crash" and should be removed. DOT responded by painting the bumps yellow.

Budnick's grim prediction quickly materialized, the steel plates wreaking havoc on bodies and bikes. Natalie Tyler, a 29-year-old sculptor, broke her nose and shattered her eye socket. Carsten Fleck, a 34-year-old photographer, broke his pelvis. Lisa Whiteman, a 30-year-old web designer, shattered her elbow in three places and had it put back together with screws. The casualty list goes on—broken jaws, collar bones, teeth. Five cyclists have filed suits against the city totaling $10 million.

While the Manhattan Bridge's new bike path uses smooth expansion joints, DOT claims the steel bumps on the Williamsburg Bridge are the only possible solution. Using smooth joints, DOT spokeswoman Kay Sarlin says, "would cause the subway to be shut down every time the joints needed to be replaced or repaired."

The Metropolitan Transit Authority, the agency that runs the JMZ line over the bridge, suspects DOT is trying to "lay the blame" on them. MTA spokesman Paul Fleuranges says his agency was never consulted in the design and construction process and had "no role in the selection of the joint covers."

Replacing or repairing the expansion joints, he says, "would not to our knowledge require any interruptions in subway service over the bridge."

I tracked down a bridge engineer with extensive knowledge of expansion joint systems. He saw no reason why smooth joints couldn't have been used. In fact, he thought they could have been cheaper to install and no harder to repair than the steel plates. He didn't want to be identified because his company does business with the city.

Contrast New York City's bridge engineers with Chicago's. When cyclists there were crashing on the slippery metal grate surfaces of the drawbridges over the Chicago River, Chicago's DOT responded with creativity, not defensiveness. They began methodically testing new surfaces, aiming to reduce slipperiness while maintaining the lightness necessary for a drawbridge to function, seemingly a much more difficult problem than the one on the Williamsburg Bridge. Last spring the engineers settled on a new design and quickly implemented it. Meanwhile, come springtime in New York City, it looks like the broken bones will still be piling up on the Willy-B.

Unsafe at any speed.

6:04 PM | Link |