About the Bridge

The bridge is named after Mario M. Cuomo, who served three terms as the 52nd Governor of New York from 1983 to 1994. He also served as New York Lieutenant Governor from 1979 to 1982 and Secretary of State of New York from 1975 to 1978.

Born in Queens in 1932, the son of Italian immigrants, Governor Cuomo was socially progressive and fiscally pragmatic, a leader who believed in the power of government to improve people’s lives.

During his tenure, Governor Cuomo balanced the state budget, dramatically lowered income tax rates and made large investments in public education, infrastructure, transportation and public safety. He was a steadfast opponent of capital punishment and vetoed death penalty bills 12 times.

Regarded as one of the nation’s most gifted orators, he gave voice nationally to issues ranging from the role of religion in public life to expanding opportunity for all.

Mario Cuomo died in 2015 at the age of 82.

The three-mile-long Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge is flanked by long approaches, and its visually-striking main span establishes an iconic gateway that will serve the majestic Hudson Valley for the next century. Geometrically aligned cables rise from the roadbed like the sails of a ship. Eight tapered towers — each 419 feet tall — lean outward as they embrace the sky. The cables, or stays, are inclined to the same extent as the towers so that the main span becomes a valley through which each roadway passes. The New York State Thruway Authority replaced the 62-year-old Tappan Zee Bridge with this state-of-the-art twin crossing, which fully opened to traffic in 2018.

The Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge carries eight wider general traffic lanes (four each on the westbound and eastbound spans), emergency shoulders, dedicated bus lanes, and includes space for commuter rail in the future. It has a 1.5 percent grade compared to 3 percent on the old Tappan Zee Bridge. This gentle incline allows large trucks to maintain consistent speed and reduce engine and braking noise. The new bridge also features gently banked curves to further smooth traffic flow and reduce accidents. In 2016, cashless tolling went into effect, eliminating the need for drivers to slow down or stop and idle at a toll plaza.

Design Features

The cable-stayed main span is supported by eight 419-foot towers, which stand at five-degree angles and feature a sleek, chamfered design. The iconic towers support 192 stay cables, which are made up of roughly 4,900 miles of steel strands. The bridge’s roadway is illuminated at night with dark-sky compliant LED light fixtures to reduce light pollution. The highly efficient system uses an estimated 75 percent less energy compared to traditional lighting technology.

The crossing is also equipped with aesthetic lighting fixtures which emphasize the distinct features of the bridge, including its concrete piers and cable-stayed main span, while respecting the scenic appearance of the Hudson Valley. The Thruway Authority uses changing light displays to mark special occasions and holidays.

Safety Features

To improve safety and mobility on the crossing, the Thruway Authority will track roadway and bridge conditions through a network of advanced monitoring systems, notifying staff of any disruptions and extreme weather conditions on the roadway. Motorists will be informed of accidents and closed lanes via overhead electronic signage, minimizing delays.

Routine and preventive maintenance work will also be efficiently scheduled through this state-of-the-art system. This vital communication network will make the bridge one of the most technologically advanced crossings in the United States when the project is fully complete.

Construction of the Governor Mario M. Cuomo Bridge began in 2013 and the bridge fully opened to traffic in 2018. At the time of its construction, it was the single largest bridge project in New York’s history.

Innovative Construction Efforts

Design-builder Tappan Zee Constructors (TZC) utilized modular construction to create large sections of the bridge’s foundations, roadway and superstructure on land. This allowed TZC to safely prepare massive segments of the bridge off-site ahead of time, with some steel sections measuring up to 410 feet in length.

Over the course of construction, more than 7,000 people worked on the project, both on- and off-site, totaling more than 13 million hours. More than 300,000 cubic yards of concrete used on the project - that’s enough concrete to build a sidewalk from the bridge to Key West, Florida.

I Lift NY Super Crane

TZC was able to install these bridge elements thanks to its largest crane, dubbed I Lift NY. The enormous crane used a 328-foot lift arm, which is capable of raising up to 1,900 tons of material — the equivalent of 12 Statues of Liberty at once. The extraordinary lifting power of I Lift NY helped shorten construction time by months from original estimates and reduced project costs by millions of dollars. The crane also helped dismantle and recycle the old Tappan Zee Bridge.

Other innovative equipment included: TZC's mobile concrete batch plants, which supplied the majority of the structure's concrete directly on the river; self-climbing jump forms that rose along with construction efforts to create the iconic main span towers; protective bubble curtains used to absorb the energy produced during pile driving; and synchronized jacks used to lower the football-field-length foundations into the Hudson River.