At a NY Building Congress breakfast today, Port Authority executive director Robert Boyle did not mention the Goethals Bridge "twin" project among the many capital projects he described to construction interests as pieces of an ambitious five year building program.

The Campaign has learned that the PA is likely to set aside $5 million in its 1998 capital budget for planning and design expenses related to the Goethals twin. The proposal to construct a second I-278 span, which would run between NJ and Staten Island, has met with harsh criticism from citizens groups, elected officials, and the media on the grounds that building an additional bridge in the corridor will increase traffic levels and aggravate congestion on local roadways.

Though the Port Authority has said a second Goethals span would not be constructed in the face of community opposition, the agency continues to try to sell the project. A new tactic involves traffic scare tactics. At a Goethals information forum in early December, PA officials said upcoming deck rehabilitation work could shut down half the lanes on the existing bridge, and suggested chaos would ensue without a second span to take up the slack. When pressed for details, however, PA staff have stated that not enough preliminary analysis has been completed to know how many, if any, lanes might need to be shut down for the deck rehabilitation, or how long the closures would last. Fortunately, not every road agency says it needs a new bridge each time an old one comes in for extensive maintenance. However, that theme has been sounded recently regarding spans along both the Garden State Parkway and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway.