a little bit faster to Bruckner and Lincoln

It’s official, the Willis Avenue Bridge traffic has been routed away from the old bridge and on to the new one. The official switch happened yesterday.

Now vehicles traveling in both directions enjoy almost “expressway” like conditions, according to reports from NY1.

The new bridge, just two blocks east of our ClockTower, will carry roughly 70,000 daily vehicles across the Harlem River. That’s well over 25 million vehicles a year.

Improvements include far better traffic routing, eliminating the awkward Bronx-bound corkscrew entry from the FDR and smoothing direct access to both Willis Avenue and Bruckner Blvd. That means taking a cab home late at night from a downtown lounge will be a little bit faster to Bruckner and Lincoln.

Lanes are wider to facilitate traffic flow and both pedestrian and bike paths have also been improved. In the next month, the old bridge will be detached, mounted to barges and floated away for scrap.

The cost of this infrastructure improvement? 

A cool $612 million dollars.