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Mill Basin Bridge
Coordinates	40°36′17″N 73°53′56″W / 40.6046°N 73.8988°W / 40.6046; -73.8988
Carries	Passenger vehicles (via Belt Parkway) Pedestrians & cyclists (via Jamaica Bay Greenway)
Crosses	Mill Basin
Locale	New York City (Brooklyn)
Maintained by	New York City Department of Transportation
ID number	2231471
Characteristics
Design	Girder Bridge
Material	Steel, Concrete
Clearance below	60 ft (18.3 m) above mean high waterline
No. of lanes	7
History
Designer	HNTB Corporation
Constructed by	Halmar International
Construction start	June 2015
Construction end	February 28, 2019
Opened	August 30, 2017
Replaces	Mill Basin Drawbridge (demolished)
Location

The Mill Basin Bridge is a seven-lane, fixed girder bridge in Brooklyn. It is owned and maintained by the New York City Department of Transportation (NYCDOT) and spans Mill Basin inlet. Completed in February 2019, the span replaces a Bascule bridge originally constructed in 1940. The bridge carries passenger vehicles via the Belt Parkway and pedestrians and cyclists via the Jamaica Bay Greenway.

History

Background

The need for a crossing above Mill Basin inlet was first identified by early 20th-century proposals to build a grade-separated circumferential parkway around the southern and eastern borders of Brooklyn and Queens. In October 1938, the project was finally made possible by a $12 million grant from the federal Public Works Administration. Plans for construction of the 36-mile (58 km) roadway were finalized and voted on by the New York City Department of Parks that same month, with Mill Basin being one of five waterways to be spanned along the western edge of Jamaica Bay by a subsection of the project known as the Shore Parkway.

Due to the area's industrialized waterfront and large shipping infrastructure, Mill Basin saw a heavy volume of marine traffic in the early-to-mid 20th century. This meant that a moveable bridge would be needed to maintain the channel's navigability.

Original bridge

The United States Department of War granted approval for the original Mill Basin Bridge in April 1939, and it first opened to the public on June 29, 1940. Drawn up by local firm Hardesty & Hanover, the $1.4 million design was a two-leaf bascule bridge with a total length of 864 ft (263 m) including a main span of 165 ft (50 m). The bridge provided 35 ft (11 m) of vertical clearance, a channel width of 131 ft (40 m), and carried two 34-foot (10 m) three-lane roadways in either direction between 6-foot (1.8 m) pedestrian sidewalks.

After the bridge's first full year of operation, it had recorded at least 3,100 openings (roughly 8–9 times per day). That frequency steadily decreased, however, as the city experienced an overall reduction in commercial maritime activity through the latter half of the century.

In January 1950, the drawbridge suffered an electrical fire which damaged its understructure. The incident led to a weekend-long closure of the parkway.

By 1953, the bridge recorded 2,173 openings (roughly 6 times per day), and shortly before its ultimate closure and replacement in 2017, the bridge would only open 210 times.

Concurrent with the city's decrease in shipping, highway traffic was on the rise. Between 2000 and 2009, citywide car ownership had risen from 44% to over 46%, and by 2013, the bridge was carrying an average of 148,000 cars per day. With a full open & close cycle of the bridge requiring no less than ten minutes, vehicle congestion induced along the Belt Parkway became a significant issue.

In 2002, the bridge had to be closed for emergency repairs after a 6-inch (150 mm) wide hole was discovered in the deck.

Proposals to replace all of New York City's moveable bridges had been raised as far back as the 1970s, but decades of underfunding made it difficult to keep the bridges in serviceable condition, let alone pay for replacements. The drawbridge experienced extensive decay through the final decades of its life from at least 1990 onward. Regular inspections consistently revealed its deck and structures to be in "Poor" or "Serious" condition, and the bridge became stuck open multiple times in the years leading up to its retirement. Furthermore, the two roadways were originally separated only by an 8-inch-high median. Police officers requested that the bridge receive a taller barrier in 1995. Between then and 2002, there were five head-on collisions that killed four drivers and paralyzed another. This drove NYCDOT to install a 200-foot-long metal guardrail in 2003. At the time, the original bridge was planned to be replaced beginning in 2004.

Replacement

In October 2009, NYCDOT launched the first phase of a capital project to reconstruct seven obsolete bridges along the Belt Parkway. Driving the massive investment was a need for modernized highway safety standards like shoulders, median barriers, and superelevation. The new Mill Basin Bridge was scheduled for the project's third phase, with plans specifying a twin-span, fixed girder bridge providing nearly twice the clearance (60 ft; 18 m) of the existing drawbridge. The transition from a moveable bridge to a fixed design would reduce cost and eliminate delays for both maritime & vehicular traffic. Further improvements included wider vehicle lanes and a protected dual-purpose pedestrian/bicycle lane.

To preserve normal vehicle traffic flow during the multi-year project, construction of the new spans began in June 2015 with brush clearing and erosion control at a site located just north of the original drawbridge. Westbound traffic was shifted to the new bridge by August 30, 2017. The old bridge was raised for the final time on December 12, 2017, and demolished in late 2018. Segments of the former concrete towers were cast into the Atlantic Ocean among efforts to expand the artificial Hempstead Reef off the coast of Long Island. Final construction of the new bridge was completed on February 28, 2019.

Incidents

On June 7, 1971, a municipal strike action organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters resulted in nearly all of the city's moveable bridges being locked open and purposefully rendered inoperable. The resulting gridlock caused massive city-wide traffic delays for more than a day. By Jun 8, United States Army Corps of Engineers teams were called in to advise city-employed scab workers on restoring bridge service. Investigations found that along with 25 other bridges, the Mill Basin Drawbridge showed evidence of sabotage including missing fuses and rewired controls which took more than 14 hours to repair.

On the night of January 6, 2019, a New York City firefighter was killed after falling between the gap in the new bridge's twin spans while responding to a motor vehicle accident. The bridge's design later drew criticism from engineers suggesting the gap should be barricaded to prevent such an incident.

References

1. "NYC DOT Bridges & Tunnels Annual Condition Report 2019" (PDF). New York City Department of Transportation. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
2. "Belt Parkway Press Release, Oct 2015". Facebook. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
3. ^ "ASHE 2019 National Conference Presentation: Belt Parkway Project" (PDF). American Society of Highway Engineers. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
4. ^ "Belt Parkway Press Release, Feb 2019". Facebook. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
5. ^ Cuba, Julianne. "New Mill Basin Bridge lanes open • Brooklyn Paper". www.brooklynpaper.com. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
6. Mathieu, George M. (October 2, 1938). "Circle Link is Certain" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 176. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
7. "City to Start Work on Shore Parkway" (PDF). The New York Times. November 8, 1938. p. 25. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
8. Black, Frederick R. (1981). "Jamaica Bay: A History" (PDF). United States Department of the Interior, National Park Service. Archived (PDF) from the original on February 5, 2017. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
9. Associated Press (April 19, 1939). "Brooklyn Span Approved; War Department Sanctions Bridge Across Mill Basin" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 46. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
10. "NYC DOT – Bridges over Smaller Waterways". www1.nyc.gov. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
11. "Bids for Span Opened; Figures Submitted for Parkway Bridge Over Mill Basin" (PDF). The New York Times. July 7, 1939. p. 11. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
12. "Part of Belt Parkway Closed by Bridge Fire" (PDF). The New York Times. January 29, 1950. p. 43. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
13. "Belt Parkway Bridge Is Afire 4 Times in Day: Fire Dept. Tires of Pouring City Water; Fireboats Stay and Pump Up Jamaica Bay". New York Herald Tribune. January 29, 1950. p. 29. ProQuest 1325859473.
14. "Belt Parkway Reopened" (PDF). The New York Times. January 30, 1950. p. 14. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
15. ^ NYC DOT Bridges & Tunnels Annual Condition Report (PDF). New York City: New York City Department of Transportation. 2014. p. 69. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
16. Kazis, Noah (April 6, 2011). "New York's Car Ownership Rate Is on The Rise". Streetsblog New York City. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
17. Lueck, Thomas J. (December 18, 2002). "Hole in Mill Basin Bridge Closes Two Lanes". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 25, 2021.
18. ^ Ferretti, Fred (June 8, 1971). "For Bridge Operator: Fear, Frustration and Boredom" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 20. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
19. Sharif, Mo (May 15, 2005). "Protecting New York City's Bridge Assets". Public Roads Magazine. 68 – via FHWA.
20. "BridgeReports.com | RTE 907C over MILL BASIN, Kings County, New York". bridgereports.com. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
21. "Drawbridge Back Open After Getting Stuck Earlier". NBC New York. July 27, 2012. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
22. Tanner, Jeremy (May 10, 2015). "Mill Basin drawbridge malfunction snarls Belt Parkway traffic on Mother's Day". PIX11. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
23. ^ Donohue, Pete (March 13, 2003). "Finally, a Safer Bridge Divider to Be Built on Mill Basin Span". New York Daily News. p. 1. ProQuest 305769280.
24. Donohue, Pete (September 12, 2002). "Deadly B'klyn Span to Get Center Guardrail". New York Daily News. p. 2. Retrieved May 25, 2021.
25. "Reconstruction of Seven Bridges on the Belt Parkway" (PDF). nyc.gov. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
26. "Old Mill Basin Bridge in its Final Position". Facebook. December 12, 2017.
27. "ASHE 2019 National Conference Presentation: Belt Parkway Project" (PDF). American Society of Highway Engineers. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
28. "Governor Cuomo Launches Historic Artificial Reef Expansion with Rail Car Drop to Hempstead Reef". www.governor.ny.gov. September 16, 2020. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
29. "DEC Announces Deployment of Mill Basin Drawbridge Materials to Enhance Hempstead's Artificial Reef – NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation". www.dec.ny.gov. Retrieved June 2, 2021.
30. Johns, Steven (March 17, 2015). "New York City municipal workers' strike, 1971".
31. Lindsey, Robert (June 9, 1971). "City Is Checking Signs Of Sabotage on Bridges" (PDF). The New York Times. p. 27. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
32. "FDNY Firefighter Dies After Falling Off Mill Basin Bridge". www.ny1.com. Retrieved May 24, 2021.
33. WABC (January 8, 2019). "Investigation underway after firefighter falls through gap on roadway in Brooklyn". ABC7 New York. Retrieved May 24, 2021.

• Girder bridges in the United States
• Road bridges in New York City
• Bridges in Brooklyn
• Bridges completed in 2019