Bright lights, big city
State bridge plan for Apple to shine
A permanent light show coming to the city’s toll crossings is going to “blow people away” and could become the Big Apple’s newest tourist attraction, Gov. Cuomo boasted.
The bridges and tunnels operated by the MTA and Port Authority will get fitted with new multicolored, energy-efficient lighting over the next three years.
“This is very exciting. This project is going to blow people away,” Cuomo said during a Post editorial board meeting Feb. 2.
Cuomo gushed that the lighting at all the crossings could be coordinated and even choreographed with music for special events and holidays and become a tourist attraction.
The LED lights, which can be programmed to run different colors and patterns, will use between 40 and 80 percent less power than more traditional types of road lighting, MTA officials said.
The lights will also last up to six times as long without having to be changed.
Cuomo said the lights will be visible from miles away.
“If you’re in Queens, you can see the lights at the Throgs Neck and the Whitestone [bridges],” he said.
The program, called “The City That Never Sleeps,” will also change the colors based on cur- rent events. For example, the colors might be rainbow for LGBT pride month, pink for breast cancer awareness, orange and blue if the Mets ever win the World Series again, and red, white and blue for Fourth of July.
The New York Harbor Crossings Project encompasses all seven MTA-operated bridges and its two tunnels, including the Henry Hudson, Whitestone, Throgs Neck, RFK, Verrazano-Narrows, Marine Parkway-Gil Hodges, and Cross Bay Veterans Memorial Bridge and the Queens Midtown and Hugh L. Carey Brooklyn Battery tunnels.
The coordinated lighting plan will also include the PA’s Hudson River crossings, including the George Washington Bridge, and the Thruway Authority’s Tappan Zee Bridge.
Cuomo said the lights will be installed over three years.