UPDATE OF THIS POST: Well, I guess we’ll find out if adding a fifth lane Westchester-bound on theTappan Zee Bridge will work: Look here for an update, courtesy of TJN/LoHud transportation reporter Khurram Saeed. Seems the Thruway Authority’s going to give the lane shift idea a try during tomorrow’s morning commute. Good luck, all!
HERE’S THE ORIGINAL POST: Now there’s talk of adding a fifth lane to the southbound (eastbound) Tappan Zee Bridge? Sigh. It’s certainly an idea worth exploring—like, in June, when the steel plates, the culprits of today’s backups, were first blamed for long traffic delays. The plates are part of a redecking project that’s more than 80 percent completed, so a fifth lane would be used just until before Thanksgiving, when the new, much needed, decking would be completed.

What’s the problem with five lanes heading into Westchester in the morning? The two lanes that would be left to carry traffic into Rockland. One commuting headache could be switched for another, with “reverse commuters” also facing a tangle of traffic. Do you think adding one lane will completely fix the traffic mess? Maybe ease it, but fix it?

I rode over the plates yesterday morning in my neighbor’s little 1991 Miata (which, in traditional commuter-car fashion, is not exactly in mint condition) and it was a teeth-rattling experience. And, this morning, heading west on Route 59, I saw the stacked traffic inching along toward the Mountainview Ave. entrance to the Thruway. So, there’s no exaggeration on commuters’ part that the whole process right now is miserable.

But will shifting the lanes just share the problem? Will adding a lane provide enough relief to justify it. The Thruway Authority is studying it (quickly, I would guess, since the project’s supposed to be completed in about a month.) And if it will work, why wasn’t it considered earlier, as Westchester- and NYC-bound commuters sat, and sat, and sat in traffic?