The Other Way of Climbing

I've climbed a lot of different kinds of bridges: arch bridges, lift bridges, cantilevered spans, transporter structures, and of course a few suspension bridges. And that's just the big guys: I've been up countless smaller truss structures, some static, some movable swing or bascule spans. I once even monkeyed up the small metal gate over Carroll Street Bridge just to say I'd climbed  a retractile bridge. But with the exception of an abandoned rail lift bridge in Cleveland and a cable-stayed tower over the Dnieper in north Kiev, they'd all also been the same: nocturnal. I'd head there at about 3:00 AM, wait until nobody was looking, and pray. And those two that I did during the day still involved the praying, and the stress that comes with wondering what'll happen if you're caught.

But this summer, I managed to summit a bridge a much different way. Through the Young Transportation Professionals of NYC, I got to, completely legitimately, head to the top of the George Washington Bridge on a beautiful summer day.

 Panorama from the top of the GW Bridge. New Jersey tower.

We started with a few warmups - first a short introduction and overview where we got our day pass badges. Then the bridge operations headquarters, where they showed off the surveillance system and new fire truck. Finally the anchor room, where we made our way all the way down to where the giant metal ropes that make up the suspension cables for the tower unwrap and then split into their individuals wires before they're anchored into cement.  The anchorage and the saddle room (the room near the top of the tower where the suspension cables peak) were the only places where the Port Authority asked us not to take pictures.

Surveillance

 coming out of the anchorage

Then it was time to head to the top. We took a two-minute ride in the elevator, a half-dozen people at a time. That got us to first mezzanine about 3/4 of the way up. Then we had our choice of a second elevator or the stairs to the second mezzanine, before heading through the saddle room, up a ladder, and out a hatch onto the top.

View from the stairs

Out the hatch

 
On the top

The reason the rope is in the picture above is because the top of the tower is where they do the bridge painter exam. They put a safety net underneath the girder, and prospective painters have to walk back and forth across the beam. Sit down, grab onto the rope, or freak out in any way and you're out. Back in 2004 I had applied for this exam on the promise that the physical test involved climbing a bridge. I was rejected for lack of painting experience.

Our tour was far from the only one of the summer - in fact the Port Authority lets people up there pretty often. They even have a viewfinder.

This is the only bridge I know of with a regular, if informal, policy of providing access. It's a shame that there aren't more like it. Our public works are just that - public. Constructed with our tax dollars, operated with our (considerable) tolls. Public access to public works should be a baseline, not a cause for celebration. And definitely not a cause for felony arrests.

Below is a short video of our tour, starting in the elevator.

On top of the George Washington Bridge from Moses Gates on Vimeo.

Big thanks to the Port Authority for letting us up, and for the Young Transportation Professionals for arranging it. Young Transportation Professionals is a great group whose New York chapter has put together some amazing tours to places like the off-limits parts of Grand Central Terminal, the #7 subway extension being dug, and the under-construction One World Trade Center this summer. Join them - it's only 20 bucks.