Say No to Grand Island Tolls
South Bridge Concrete Piers
These pictures were taken the first week of December 2008
For a few weeks I have been watching as an inspector went up and down each and every concrete pier under the South Grand Island Bridge. He started on the Tonawanda side first then went over to the Grand Island side.
On every pier there are markings, some of them look like jig saw puzzles. Some of the lines are white and some are orange. But they are everywhere on every pier.
Last year a group of concerned citizens attended a regular meeting of the bridge committee at Town Hall. Questions were brought up to the panel concerning structural damage to the bridge supports, bridge bearings, sliding plates and most importantly, rust that for years that has been oozing out of the concrete piers that hold up the Grand Island South Bridge.
My major concern is and always has been the condition of the concrete piers. It is not normal to have rust running down the sides, cracks, chunks of concrete missing, and swelling concrete.
To my construction eye that is a tell tale sign of corrosion as water has permeated the concrete, saturated the areas around the steel reinforcement bar causing it to swell, rust and corrode. As the steel re bar swells it causes cracks and swelling concrete forcing the rust to ooze out of the concrete piers and run down the sides. Eventually chunks of concrete
Time after time we questioned the Thruway Authority board members and over and over the refused to agree that structural damage was happening. Only after the fifth question that was finely tuned did they answer in the affirmative.
As you can see by these pictures it has gotten much worse and finally now it appears they are planning on doing something about it.
For decades the Thruway Authority has drilled into the population that they need the toll revenue to maintain the bridges, yet every single year the Thruway Authority has walked away from Grand Island Bridges with millions upon millions of our Toll dollars.
Now, this coming year they plan on "Borrowing" over 45 Million to repair and re deck the North bound South Bridge. Apparently now they are planning on repairing the concrete piers, all of them including the bases and the bases that are in the Niagara River.
Wouldn't you think regular repairs and maintenance over these decades could have prevented all this?
This is completely irresponsible and shows that these bridge tolls are simply a cash cow for the Thruway Authority and Albany.
It is past time to remove these tolls. Bring in the Federal Dollars to repair the bridges and start construction of new ones.
To borrow this money now ensures the tolls will remain for decades to come.
Sign the petition and tell Albany to turn this road over to the NY State DOT and allow our gas tax dollars to rebuild these bridges.
