This story was produced in conjunction with the NYCity News Service and with the support of the Equity Through Data Project at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.
Drivers heading to LaGuardia Airport or CitiField may not know it, but they could face greater concerns than missing their flight or the first pitch.
On a single stretch of highway in Queens — where the Grand Central Parkway meets the Whitestone Expressway near the Mets’ stadium — seven parts of roadway or ramps were deemed in poor condition last year, according to an NYCity News Service analysis of state bridge inspection data.
These are far from isolated issues. Despite increased spending for aging infrastructure, 118 sections of New York City bridges were found by inspectors to be in poor condition in 2024, slightly more than the previous year. That represents nearly 8% of bridge segments citywide — and almost one-fifth of the total roadway of all the city’s bridges, our analysis found.
Meanwhile, experts say tens of billions of dollars in repairs are needed as uncertainty stemming from the Trump administration’s battles with the state over congestion pricing and more leaves long-term plans for fixes in flux.
Most of New York’s bridges do not traverse water. A bridge may be an overpass or raised roadway, and can go over another road, railway or bike path. By this definition, there are nearly 1,500 bridges across the five boroughs, our analysis found.
These spans, cumulatively, carry hundreds of thousands of vehicles daily.
The list includes parts of some of the city’s most iconic roadways: ramps that feed into the Brooklyn Bridge and George Washington Bridge and clusters along major highways like the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, the Harlem River Drive and the Grand Central Parkway.
According to federal standards, bridges determined to be in “poor condition” suffer from “advanced” deterioration. Transportation officials emphasized that findings of bridges in “poor condition” do not mean the spans are unsafe and should be closed, but rather that they need repairs or modifications. Officials also noted that the state and city are pouring billions into bridges.
“New York has one of the most aggressive road and bridge renewal programs in the United States and is investing more in the modernization of its transportation infrastructure than at any other point in the state’s history,” said Rolando Infante, a spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation. He added that the state capital plan adopted in 2022 includes $6.1 billion for local governments statewide “to renew and modernize bridges and pavements.”
The NYCity News Service’s findings come as President Donald Trump wages a pitched war against Gov. Kathy Hochul over congestion pricing in Manhattan — potentially zapping billions from the MTA, which operates some key local spans, including the Robert F. Kennedy and Verrazzano-Narrows bridges. Washington officials are also threatening to withhold federal highway funds that could include bridge repair money. The White House has also taken transportation-related shots at New York over everything from the state of the subways to the future of Penn Station.
Biden-era infrastructure funds that make it to the city could help with repairs, but aren’t enough, experts say. A 2024 report by State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli found that the city was billions behind in federal funding for needed bridge maintenance alone.
The American Society of Civil Engineers gave New York State’s bridges a C-minus on its 2022 report card assessing span conditions locally. The group’s latest national report, released in March, graded the country’s bridges a C overall but didn’t focus on individual states.
Meanwhile, the National Transportation Safety Board in March called for spans across the nation — including the Brooklyn and Manhattan bridges — to be inspected for risk of collapse after an errant container ship took down Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge last year.
The crash of a high-masted Mexican naval ship into the underside of the Brooklyn Bridge on Saturday night, killing two crew members, offered a stark reminder of the potential for accidents involving local spans.
Worries about the city’s aging spans are not idle problems: Portions of 11 city-owned bridges were at least partially closed in 2023 due to structural problems necessitating repairs. One span on that list — the W. 155th Street pedestrian bridge — is slated for demolition in 2030, records show.
This past summer, the Third Avenue Bridge connecting Manhattan and The Bronx got stuck after opening for water traffic during one of the year’s hottest days. Firefighters sprayed the structure with cool water to help it finally close.
To pinpoint local spans in poor condition, the NYCity News Service looked at federally mandated state bridge inspection data released annually. Our reporters also scoured other public records and talked to engineers. Among our findings:
State inspectors cited segments of two spans for troubling erosion below the waterline: part of the Harlem River Drive just north of the Macombs Dam Bridge at 155th Street, and a section of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge. The segments are part of bridges otherwise in “fair condition,” records show.The percentage of New York bridges found to be in poor condition has declined modestly over the last decade. Still, the city bridges rank below the national average, inspection records show. The average age of a bridge in New York City is nearly 70. The vast majority were built when the standard expected lifespan was 50 years. For the most part, the older the bridge, the more likely it is to do poorly in inspections. Increased truck weights are taking a toll on city spans built decades ago for lighter vehicles, experts say. Experts fear that climate change — especially increased heat and flooding — will bring new challenges for New York’s heavily burdened transportation infrastructure.
Spanning the Nation
Federal law requires state inspectors to examine most bridges every two years. Some are reviewed annually. About 5% of the nation’s bridges are allowed to go four years between inspections, depending on the age of the spans and other factors.
Inspectors examine dozens of aspects of each bridge, grading them based on in-person observations. They pay special attention to three crucial areas: the deck, superstructure and substructure. If any of these are considered to be in poor condition, then the bridge itself is deemed in poor shape.
The deck is the road you drive or walk on.
The substructure is what holds the bridge up — the columns that extend down to the ground or water, called piers, and how the bridge attaches to the land on each end, called abutments.
The superstructure helps directly hold the deck.
Engineer Brian Keierleber explained it this way: The substructure is the footing that holds up the bridge. The superstructure carries the weight of the road and vehicles from one column to the next — for example, steel beams that extend across the underside of the bridge roadway.
The Third Avenue Bridge connects Harlem and the South Bronx, Dec. 14, 2024. Credit: Adrian O’Farrill/NYCity News Service
These are graded on a scale of 1 to 9. A score of 4 or less translates to a “poor” mark.
All bridge inspections are filed to the Federal Highway Administration, which compiles a nationwide database. The NYCity News Service analyzed that data, and cross-referenced key findings with reports produced by the city, state and engineers.
When a bridge inspector finds a critical issue that requires prompt action, the official can use a color-coded system to flag and alert bridge owners to spur a response. Red — the most critical level — indicates that immediate action is needed to solve “potentially hazardous structural conditions.”
Some 407 red flags were issued statewide in the 2022-2023 fiscal year, the most recent data published by the state shows.
A freedom of information request filed by the NYCity News Service reveals that between September 2022 and December 2024 inspectors issued 145 red flags for bridges in the city, encompassing spans in every borough except for Staten Island. In the most recent instance covered by the records, inspectors on Dec. 12 red-flagged the 124-year-old Grand Street Bridge going over Newtown Creek in Brooklyn, citing girders with rust and cracks.
Though very rare, bridges do fail. The Schoharie Creek Bridge in upstate New York collapsed in 1987, killing 10 people. The bridge was about 30 years old. In 1989, a 500-pound slab of concrete sheared off the FDR Drive and killed a driver.
In 2007, the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis collapsed, killing 13 people. The bridge had been classified as structurally deficient.
Bridges can also fall apart from accidents as in the case of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, which killed six bridge workers when a container ship hit the substructure.
‘Kicking the Can’
Near LaGuardia Airport and CitiField, a portion of a bridge that goes over the Flushing Bay Promenade is one of the busiest stretches of any span in poor condition citywide: Interstate 678, on a stretch commonly known as the Whitestone Expressway, carries about 180,000 vehicles daily, according to state records.
Under federal guidelines, a “poor condition” finding suggests the bridge’s ability to handle its usual amount of traffic may be “jeopardized.” That could include cracking or when a bridge’s structure weakens or when pieces of concrete break away, exposing reinforcing steel.
State, city and federal officials declined to answer repeated direct questions on the timing for any repairs to these sections of bridges near LaGuardia and CitiField.
They are owned and managed by the state Department of Transportation which, along with the city Transportation Department and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, operate most of New York’s bridges.
In 2023, the state DOT awarded a contract to repair other nearby portions of bridges along the Grand Central Parkway, between Commonwealth Avenue and Union Turnpike, budget documents show.
Fixing bridges is expensive: It’s going to cost over $73 million to repair four overpasses along the Belt Parkway in Brooklyn, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced last summer. Building the new Kosciuszko Bridge, which opened ahead of schedule in 2019, ran up to $873 million.
State Senator John Liu (D-Queens), a former City Council transportation committee chair and past city comptroller, said years of neglect contributed to the current state of local bridges.
“There was a lot of kicking the can,” Liu said.
Repairs for old and heavily used thoroughfares can be tricky to manage, he added.
“The Van Wyck has been under construction the entire duration of my life,” the 58-year-old senator said, referring to a section of I-678 that runs from Queens to The Bronx. “And I expect that to be the case under the duration of my great grandchildren[s’ lives] as well.”
Across the country, 6.8% of the nation’s more than 600,000 bridges are in poor condition, translating to about 42,000 spans. In New York City, the figure is nearly 8%. The spans found to be in poor condition cover slightly more than 19% of the total roadway of all the city’s bridges, our analysis found.
This marks an improvement from 2014 when the percentage of city bridges deemed “structurally deficient,” the terminology used at the time, was 10%.
Overall, the state is moving in the right direction, said engineer Sreenivas Alampalli, co-author of the 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) bridge report that gave New York’s bridges a C-minus grade.
“Lately, ‘preservation first’ is a focus for the DOT,” said Alampalli, who was also a contributor to the state’s bridge inspection manual.
Uncertain Road for Repairs
Funding for bridge repair comes from a patchwork tangle of intertwined federal, state and city sources — all threatening to come apart under new pressures from Washington. Federal transportation officials did not respond to requests for comment.
The Biden administration’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act allocated $1.2 trillion for transportation and infrastructure upgrades, including $550 billion for bridges. That represented the nation’s largest dedicated bridge investment in 50 years, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The act provides New York State with $38.1 billion, according to the state comptroller’s office. The state’s 2023 budget included a record high nearly $33 billion five-year spending plan for the state Department of Transportation and local roads.
People walk over the Brooklyn Bridge, Feb. 29, 2024. Credit: Adrian O’Farrill/NYCity News Service
However, according to the state comptroller’s analysis of national data, the amount needed to fix all bridges across New York State is over $70 billion. The repair cost for city-owned bridges in New York City alone exceeds $19 billion, according to the analysis. And those represent less than half of the spans across the five boroughs.
The federal legislation’s Bridge Formula Program kicks in $2 billion for New York’s bridges over five years, and a pot of $9.6 billion in grants for rehabilitation of at-risk bridges includes $22.6 million for New York, according to the state comptroller.
The federal money is pooled with other resources for infrastructure upgrades, noted Anil Agrawal, a civil engineering professor at the City College of New York.
But it may not be enough, Agrawal added: “$1.2 trillion dollars for all the infrastructure in the country is like pennies.”
In 2024, according to Hochul’s office, 904 of New York City’s bridges were rehabilitated, repaired or improved, and 54 miles of the city’s highway and road lanes were repaved. These projects were a part of a $2.9 billion statewide effort by the state transportation and thruway departments.
According to the Mayor’s Ten-Year Capital Strategy, the city DOT is planning over $16 billion in bridge repair, replacement and rehabilitation projects. It’s unclear how much of these funds are tied up with federal dollars.
The city Department of Transportation did not respond to requests for comment.
Scouring a Menace
While it can take years to get funding and make repairs, the weather’s toll on bridges is increasingly swift and devastating, heightening concerns as climate change brings more and fiercer storms.
This past summer, over 600 bridges across North Carolina were damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Helene, necessitating $6 billion in repairs.
The underwater erosion of pilings around a bridge’s foundations is known as “scour” — and it’s a leading cause of highway bridge failures in the U.S.
There were visible cracks on the sidewalk on Arthur Avenue overpass along the Cross Bronx Expressway, Dec. 14, 2024. Credit: Adrian O’Farrill/NYCity News Service
Two segments of bridges in New York have a critical scour rating: a section of the Harlem River Drive just north of the Macombs Dam Bridge at 155th Street in Manhattan, and a part of the Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges Memorial Bridge, near Jacob Riis Park in Brooklyn.
Both segments earned a scour rating of three, meaning the bridge foundations were determined to be “unstable for assessed or calculated scour conditions”. Nevertheless, according to the data, the crossings are considered to be in “fair condition” overall.
It’s unclear when repairs are on tap for the Harlem River Drive section. The MTA has earmarked $50 million for work in the Hodges bridge in its 2025-2029 capital plan. Funding for the capital plan was included in the state budget agreement announced in late April.
“Additional repairs will be programmed into future capital plans as part of the overall strategy to address structural repair needs throughout the system,” Laura Cala-Rauch, an MTA spokesperson wrote in an email.
Age and Weight Take a Toll
Most city bridges have been around longer than most New Yorkers. The average bridge in the city was built in 1956.
Among the oldest is the iconic Brooklyn Bridge, which opened in 1883. One part of the bridge, along with a ramp leading to it, is in poor condition, inspection records show.
Overall, the older a bridge is, the more likely it is to be in poor condition, according to a 2023 analysis by DiNapoli’s office. Many older bridges are far past the average 50-year life for which they were designed, according to a state Department of Transportation report.
Our analysis showed the same: All but three of the 118 bridge sections found in poor condition were built before 1975.
The city DOT owns or manages nearly 600 of the almost 1,500 bridge segments across New York City. Statewide, local governments own about half of all bridges.
Of the 118 portions of bridges in poor condition, New York City owns 64 of them, the NYCity News Service’s analysis shows. Most of the others are owned by the MTA and the state.
Meanwhile, increasingly heavy trucks are taxing the city’s aging, heavily trafficked spans.
Some bridges, like parts of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway, were originally designed for trucks carrying a maximum of 72,000 pounds. Now, according to federal standards, highways and bridges are built to handle trucks at 80,000 pounds — the equivalent of 40 tons each.
According to a 2020 federal study, 11% of the trucks that used the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway from October 2019 to Jan 2020 were overweight.
Drivers headed over metal braces on the Broadway Bridge connecting the upper tip of Manhattan and The Bronx, Dec. 14, 2024 Credit: Adrian O’Farrill/NYCity News Service
Statewide data suggests this is a growing problem: Around 16% of the trucks weighed in New York State received overweight citations in 2023, compared to 11% in 2019.
Every extra pound a vehicle is overweight can cause exponentially more damage, according to Michel Ghosn, a professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York. Over time, a high volume of truck traffic could slowly weaken a bridge, Ghosn said.
The city plans to fix the cantilevered stretch of the BQE between Atlantic Avenue and Sands Street in Downtown Brooklyn, a project that could extend into the early 2030s.
A stretch of the BQE, over Flushing Avenue near the Brooklyn Navy Yard, carries nearly 138,000 vehicles daily, and 13% are trucks. Every day around 140,000 vehicles use the on-ramp to the Cross Bronx Expressway from Sheridan Boulevard — and 16% of those are trucks. Both segments are among the 118 segments citywide tagged as in poor condition.
New York City is deploying new technology to help spot overweight trucks. In a July press release, the city said its weigh-in-motion system installed along the BQE in 2023, has decreased the amount of overweight trucks by 64%.
Meanwhile, 30 city-owned bridges were load posted in 2022, meaning that heavier vehicles were further restricted from using those spans. Signs inform motorists of the weight limits.
Additional reporting by Ray DePaul, NYCity News Service
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