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Spiraling problems on the Manhattan Bridge will halt its6-year-old rehabilitation project in mid-construction and promptedthe Transit Authority to delay restoring full subway service over the bridge until the end of the century, New York Newsday has learned. The problems include faulty designs, accelerating corrosion, the impending departure of the primary contractor, conflicts between city and state agencies and huge funding gaps. Each has compounded the delays and cost overruns, officials of the city and state Departments of Transportation said.
As a result, the departments have decided to halt all structural work on the bridge from November until March, 1990, while they revamp the project and find a new contractor, the officials said. During that time, full road traffic will be restored for the first time since 1986. But IND and BMT subway service will continue to operate on only two of four tracks, as it has since 1986, so the TA can do track repair.
The two departments estimate that the expanded work and delays could add as much as $100 million to the joint project - for a total of $260 million - and extend the completion date as much as seven years, until October, 1999.
"It is not an ideal situation," said Michael Francese, state DOT director for New York City. "But we think that by taking the next year and a half to work out a detailed plan with the TA and the city and find a contractor, we will end up better off in the long run."
The 79-year-old Manhattan Bridge has seven traffic lanes, four railroad tracks and two walkways over the East River linking lower Manhattan and Brooklyn. When the rehabilitation project began in April, 1982, the bridge carried 150,000 motorists each day and 219,000 subway riders on the B, D, N and R lines.
The discovery of severe corrosion in the eyebars anchoring one of the bridge's four suspender cables forced the city to shut down the east side of the bridge in April, 1986, removing two traffic lanes and two train tracks. The TA had just completed...