With 97 percent of the deck panels now replaced, long suffering Tappan Zee Bridge commuters are beginning to see some relief.

“The work has to be done ‘€” the deck is very, very bad ‘€” but our priority always is to minimize any inconvenience to the public and I think we have done that,” the Thruway’s New York division director Ramesh Mehta tells the Times Herald-Record. Small ramps have been added to the roadway to smooth out the bumps when cars and trucks ride over the plates. “We wanted to make sure they had a smoother transition,” Mehta says. Blogger and fiction author Randolph Mase calls it a “genius move,” although he says hesitant drivers are still holding up the works.

The Journal News reports some plates appear to stretch only several inches up to the metal plates despite Thruway authority claims that the ramps would be 2 feet long. Mehta said the length of the individual ramps depends on the thickness of the plates to which they are attached.

Sources: Journal News,  Times Herald-Record
Photo Credit: Upstreamzine.Wordpress.com