No Sleep till Brooklyn?

At 124 years old, the Brooklyn Bridge is a landmark and one of the nation’s oldest bridges. But is it safe to cross?  According to this morning’s [Newsday],  National Bridge Inventory compiled by the Federal Highway Administration found that 3.3 percent of bridges on Long Island are "structurally deficient" while the figure was 11.5 percent in New York City, 12.1 percent in New York State and 12.1 percent nationwide.

But not to fret, out of the nearly 800 bridges that live in the city, the only major artery to receive a poor rating is the Brooklyn Bridge.

"The poor rating for the Brooklyn Bridge means only components of the bridge are in poor condition, that would be the ramps leading to the bridge and not the bridge itself," said [Lori Ardito], first deputy commissioner at the city Department of Transportation. "If the bridge was deemed to be unsafe, we would close it."

There’s a rehabilitation project scheduled to begin in 2010 that will tie up traffic two to three years.

Photo courtesy of [Washington Trails Association].