Nearer-term congestion-busting solutions like West Shore passenger rail revitalization, a bus/HOV lane in the Tappan Zee reversible median, new van services and peak/off peak toll pricing seem to have been sloughed into a mix of long-term possibilities which the Thruway now says it must evaluate in an environmental impact statement for the new bridge.

Responding to a letter inquiring about trying these easier options before beginning the contentious environmental review for a new bridge, Platt wrote, "I am not sure how one fashions an exhaustion of alternatives without addressing each alternative's environmental effects..."

In heated discussion Monday, many Hudson Valley citizens questioned the Thruway's claim that the existing bridge's structural and seismic deficiencies warrant new bridge construction. Citing scientific findings of former studies, such as the seismic hazard assessment of the Tappan Zee Bridge performed by scientists at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in 1995, which do not make a case for urgent bridge replacement, citizens argued that discrepancies between the Thruway's and geophysicists' interpretations of findings call for a careful re-examination of the bridge's condition.

One citizen read former Thruway Chairman Howard Steinberg's March 29, 1999 statement that the Tappan Zee Bridge, currently undergoing a two-and-a-half year capital construction program, will allow motorists to "continue to rely on its safety and convenience well into the 21st century." Platt responded that "We apparently didn't know then what we know now."

Suspicions were also raised over text that reads "construction of a parallel causeway and removal of existing causeway" in the Thruway's most recent version of its "Costs to Maintain Existing Tappan Zee" chart. Slipping replacement of this component into the maintenance program could enable the agency to begin, Robert Moses-like, work on a new bridge without undergoing environmental review of full impacts and alternatives.

Congressman Gilman deferred all questions and comments to the panel of transportation officials.