These Busy NYC Bridges Are 'Structurally Deficient,' Study Finds

NEW YORK CITY — Nearly one in ten New York State bridges are structurally deficient and the most-traveled of them are all in New York City, a recent study shows.

Hundreds of thousands of cars daily cross New York City bridges deemed "in poor or worse condition," according to a American Road & Transportation Builders Association report on crumbling transportation infrastructure released earlier this year.

The Belt, Grand Central and Henry Hudson Parkways each have at least one structurally deficient bridge, as do the Brooklyn-Queens and Cross Bronx expressways, the study shows.

These highways also see between 140,000 and a 200,000 vehicles cross over them every day.

The city's Department of Transportation — which owns, operates, and maintains 789 bridges and tunnels — did not immediately respond to request for comment.

But news reports and public documentation from the department show some of these highways have and will see renovations.

The Transportation department invested $767 million in a Belt Parkway bridge reconstruction project that updated by 2019 five bridges including the Fresh Creek, Rockaway Parkway, Paerdegat Basin, Bay Ridge and Gerritsen Inlet, a 2019 report shows.

And both the BQE and the Cross Bronx Expressway could see major renovations under the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill passed in New York City in 2021.

The problem of bridge repair is not New York City's alone, according to the study from the American Road and Transportation Builders Association, a lobbying group that gave more than $2.6 million to political candidates in recent years.

The analyis — based on the U.S. Department of Transportation's National Bridge Inventory data — found the city's damaged bridges are among 1,672 bridges classified as structurally deficient statewide, about 9.5 percent of New York's stock, according to the analysis.

According to the study, only six of New York's 17,555 bridges do not require any repairs, which would a total of $33.4 billion to complete.