EDITOR'S NOTE: The original Tappan Zee Bridge Web site -- which had been cleaned of all documents relating to the original mass transit proposal -- is back up online here.

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Following the federal government's recent decision to fast-track a new trans-Hudson bridge for automotive traffic only, County Executive Rob Astorino, State Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins of Yonkers and others have called on federal and state officials to include a mass transit option in Tappan Zee Bridge replacement plans.

"We can't build an eight-track bridge in an iPod world," said Astorino who called for a redesign that would accommodate Bus Rapid Transit. His sentiments were echoed by Yonkers City Council Speaker Chuck Lesnick who noted that the George Washington Bridge, built 80 years ago, was also supposed to have a mass transit option built later. 

Sen. Andrea Stewart-Cousins"As we wrestle with the costs of this project, we must consider our future transportation needs," said Stewart-Cousins, a Yonkers Democrat who represents the 35^th District. "To that end, it is critical that the new bridge include mass transit options such as bus rapid transit, so that it can sustain increased usage for years to come. This is what's best for our environment, our economy and our transportation system as a whole."

Approximately 138,000 vehicles travel across the Tappan Zee Bridge every day, a number far greater than the bridge was designed to handle when it was built in 1955. Traffic is expected to increase significantly in the coming years, and without mass transit, analysts say congestion will continue to worsen. 

Meanwhile, the state Department of Transportation has identified the Tappan Zee as one of 1,100 "fracture-critical" bridges in New York that require intense scrutiny and maintenance in order to prevent catastrophic failure, the Journal News reported.

The new Tappan Zee Bridge will not include mass transit when the rebuilt bridge opens in 2017, but a planning document released Tuesday by the Federal Highway Administration and New York's DOT offers details on how the new crossing could be retrofitted to include commuter trains at some point in the future.

The 49-page document published online Tuesday says the key is to leave open the door for a 42-foot gap between eastbound and westbound traffic spans to be developed for transit service.  Adding that reinforced retrofit would cost up to $1 billion, but that is just half or a third the cost of a freestanding new bridge for mass transit.

As this new document emerged, StreetsBlog noted that the state DOT has expunged from its online public record all information about the nine-year public process and the four design alternatives that included rail and bus lines. The Tappan Zee Web site no longer displays the documents it did two weeks ago. The endorsement of transit, the extensive environmental analysis, the history of public input - all of it gone, replaced by three short documents chronicling the brief history of the transit-free project."

Kate Slevin, executive director of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, said she couldn't recall a single example of this kind of wholesale document scrubbing.