This morning I was linked to a page about a crazy guy dangling himself from the Tappan Zee bridge. You can find more of his story here. Here is my summary; around 10:40 am, Michael Davitt, 54, of West Haverstraw, NY staged a protest on the bridge. Davitt drove his van onto the center of the bridge and lowered himself off the bridge using a rope ladder. Davitt had a sign, which said "Rockland Executive Legislative Cover up Retaliation" along with food, hanging at the midpoint between the bridge and the Hudson River. This protest was in response to his wrongful firing when he worked for the county in 2008. Davitt "was separated from the County service in 2008 because he was no longer able to perform his essential job functions as a Substance Abuse Counselor 1" as stated by the Rockland County Executive's Office. Davitt was employed from 1991 to 2008 by the Department of Mental Health in Ponoma. As a result of the protest, traffic came to a slow to a standstill. Two lanes on the Westchester bound of the the bridge was closed as the police and fire departments responded to the incident. Helicopters as well as boats from the fire department circled the protester. The traffic extended into the Palisades Parkway. The ordeal finally ended around 2:00 pm, as Michael Davitt was lowered down, dropped into the river in an attempt to swim away from the police. (IDIOT) He was caught and was arrested.
I was hoping it was something cooler than that. Upset at losing his job? Suck it up bud. Got me to thinking though, you may not know what the Tappan Zee bridge is or why it's included here in a Dutch blog. Well, thanks to my personal visits and wikipedia; here is the Tappan Zee Bridge.
The Governor Malcolm Wilson Tappan Zee Bridge, usually referred to as Tappan Zee Bridge, is a cantilever bridge in New York over the Hudson River at one of its widest points. The Tappan Zee is named for an American Indian tribe from the area called "Tappan"; and zee being the Dutch word for "sea". It connects Nyack in Rockland County with Tarrytown in Westchester County.
The total length of the bridge and approaches is 16,013 feet providing a maximum clearance of 138 feet over the water. The bridge is about 25 miles north of midtown Manhattan; the skyline can be seen from the bridge on a clear day.
The bridge is part of the New York State Thruway mainline, and also designated as Interstate 87 and Interstate 287. The span carries seven lanes of motor traffic. The center lane can be switched between eastbound and westbound traffic depending on the prevalent commuter direction; on weekdays, the center lane is eastbound in the morning and westbound in the evening. The switch is accomplished via a movable center barrier which is moved by a pair of barrier transfer machines. Even with the switchable lane, traffic is frequently very slow. The bridge is one of the primary crossings of the Hudson River north of New York City; it carries much of the traffic between southern New England and points west of the Hudson.
As of January 2009, eastbound passenger car pays a toll of $5.00 cash. Construction started in March 1952 and the bridge opened for traffic on December 15, 1955. New York State Governor W. Averell Harriman signed a bill on February 28, 1956 to name the structure officially the Tappan Zee Bridge. In 1994, the name of Malcolm Wilson was added to the bridge's name upon the 20th anniversary of his leaving the governor's office in December 1974.
The deteriorating structure, which bears far more traffic than it was designed for, has led to plans to repair the bridge or replace it with a tunnel or a new bridge. These plans and discussions were whittled down to six options and underwent environmental review. Part of the justification for the replacement of the bridge has been that it was constructed during material shortages during the Korean War and designed to last only 50 years. The collapse of the I-35W Mississippi River bridge in Minnesota on August 1, 2007 has renewed concerns about the bridge's structural integrity.
The Metropolitan Transit Authoritry is studying the feasibility of either including a rail line across the new bridge or building the new bridge so a new rail line can be installed at a future date. The rail line, if built, will be located on a lower level, beneath the roadway.
On September 26, 2008, New York state officials announced their plan to replace the Tappan Zee Bridge with a new bridge that includes commuter-train tracks and lanes for high-speed buses. The bridge would cost $6.4 billion. Meetings by the New York State of Transportation with local communities were held in December 2009. They revised the replacement cost including road, rail, and bus to be $16 billion. (CHEAP)
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