After the
George Washington Bridge connecting
Manhattan and
New Jersey was completed in 1931, vehicles traveling between New Jersey and
The Bronx would use the
Washington Bridge, which crosses the
Harlem River just north of the present Alexander Hamilton Bridge. The Alexander Hamilton Bridge was planned in the mid-1950s to connect
Robert Moses's proposed
Trans-Manhattan and
Cross-Bronx Expressways and to accommodate the additional traffic resulting from the addition of the six-lane lower level to the George Washington Bridge. With the
Interstate designation, 90% of the $21 million in construction costs were covered by the federal government. The bridge opened on January 15, 1963. Starting in 2009, the bridge underwent a full renovation.
China Construction America received the $407 million contract for the project. The Chinese firm completed the renovation under budget and 35 days ahead of schedule. While the
traffic jams created from the construction had not been as bad as local officials had anticipated, inbound delays at the Hudson River crossings increased after the project began. In July 2014, Governor
Andrew Cuomo announced that the bridge renovation was complete. ==See also==