The Throgs Neck Bridge is a suspension bridge in New York City, carrying six lanes of Interstate 295 (I-295) over the East River where it meets the Long Island Sound. The bridge connects the Throggs Neck section of the Bronx with the Bay Terrace section of Queens.
Opened on January 11, 1961, it is the newest bridge across the East River and was built to relieve traffic on the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge, 2 miles (3.2 km) to the west. The Throgs Neck Bridge is also the easternmost crossing of the East River. Due to this and its proximity to I-95, it is the closest route from Long Island to New Jersey via the George Washington Bridge, as well as points north.
The Throgs Neck Bridge is owned by the government of New York City and operated by the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), an affiliate agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA).
The Throgs Neck Bridge is a six-lane suspension bridge, with three in each direction. It was designed by structural engineer Othmar Ammann, who also designed the George Washington, Bronx–Whitestone, Verrazzano–Narrows, and Triborough Bridges in New York City. It connects the boroughs of Queens to the south and the Bronx to the north, and is the third vehicular bridge to be constructed between Queens and the Bronx, after the Triborough and Bronx–Whitestone Bridges. Each three-lane roadway is 37 feet (11 m) wide, and the two directions of traffic are divided by a 4-foot-wide (1.2 m) barrier. The roadway is paved with asphalt. There is no pedestrian or bicyclist access of any kind. The Throgs Neck Bridge is a toll bridge; it originally had tollbooths on the Bronx side, but they were replaced by open road tolling gantries in 2017.
The Throgs Neck Bridge did not have to accommodate large vessels of specific dimensions and as a result, did not need to be as long as other Ammann-designed bridges in New York City. The center span is 1,800 feet (550 m), and the distance between each suspension tower and anchorage is 555 feet (169 m), with an anchorage-to-anchorage total length of 2,910 feet (887 m). The bridge contains two long approach ramps, one on either bank, because both the Bronx and Queens ends are located on low elevations. The bridge has a 3,900-foot (1,200 m) approach ramp in the Bronx, curving over the SUNY Maritime College at Fort Schuyler on the Throggs Neck peninsula, as well as a 2,800-foot (850 m) ramp directly east of Cryder's Point in Bay Terrace, Queens. Including approaches, the bridge spans more than 2.1 miles (3.4 km).
The span is supported by two main cables, which suspend the deck and are held up by the suspension towers. Each main cable contains 37 strands, with each strand made of 296 individual wires, for a total of 10,952 wires per main cable. The main cables weigh 1,790 short tons (1,600 long tons; 1,620 metric tons) each. At each end of the suspension span are two anchorages that hold the main cables, both of which are freestanding concrete structures measuring 250 by 350 feet (76 by 107 m). The bridge's Bronx anchorage is at the tip of Throggs Neck, and the towers are located in the middle of the Long Island Sound. The Queens anchorage is located off the shore of Fort Totten, in the East River.
The suspension towers of the bridge are of closed-box construction with arched struts at the top of each tower. The tops of the suspension towers are sharp and blocky atop the struts, and there are flattened segmental arches on the underside of the struts. Both suspension towers are located on artificial concrete islands in the East River, which are 20 feet (6.1 m) above mean high water. Each suspension tower rises 326 feet (99 m) above the islands, or 346 feet (105 m) above mean high water. Peregrine falcons have lived high on a suspension tower since at least 1983, when they were first spotted. They are thought to have nested there because the tops of the towers resembled their natural habitat of high cliffs.
Instead of employing a rather streamlined-looking plate-girder system, Ammann constructed the bridge with 28-foot-deep (8.5 m) stiffening transverse trusses under the deck. These served as counterweights to the bridge and allowed any wind to simply blow through, instead of against, the bridge. The asphalt roadway lies atop a 5-inch-thick (13 cm) deck, which consists of dozens of panels that lie directly above the trusses.
The Throgs Neck Bridge was one of the few that were not part of the plans for the Belt Parkway around Queens and Brooklyn. Instead, the bridge was built along with the Clearview Expressway in Queens and the eastern part of the Cross Bronx Expressway in the Bronx.
The Throgs Neck Bridge carries Interstate 295 (I-295). On the Queens side, the bridge connects to the southbound Clearview Expressway (I-295) and the southbound Cross Island Parkway. There is no direct connection to the northbound Cross Island Parkway or from the Cross Island Parkway service roads in either direction. On the Bronx side, there are connections to and from the community of Throggs Neck. The northbound entrance and exit leads to the Throgs Neck Expressway service road, while the southbound exit and entrance leads from the intersection of the Throgs Neck Expressway service road and Harding Avenue. Immediately afterward, the highway splits into the Throgs Neck Expressway (I-695), which connects to northbound I-95; and I-295, which connects to southbound I-95, westbound I-278, and northbound Hutchinson River Parkway at the Bruckner Interchange.
As of 2015, the Throgs Neck Bridge has a height limit of 14 feet 7 inches (4.45 m) for southbound vehicles and 15 feet 1 inch (4.60 m) for northbound vehicles. The maximum width of any vehicle is 15 feet 0 inches (4.57 m). Tractor-trailers exceeding 53 feet and traveling between Long Island and the Bronx are required to use the Throgs Neck Bridge. A weight limit is imposed on heavy vehicles traveling on the bridge. The MTA allows 6 and 7-axle trucks with less than 105,000 lb (48,000 kg) of gross vehicle weight, and 5-axle trucks with less than 102,000 lb (46,000 kg) of gross vehicle weight, if they have valid divisible-load permits. Trucks carrying less than 80,000 lb (36,000 kg) may also use the bridge, but all heavy loads are speed-restricted to 30 miles per hour (48 km/h) and must use the center lane of the bridge. Heavy trucks carrying more than 80,000 lb without permits are prohibited from using the Throgs Neck Bridge.
The name of "Throgs Neck" in the bridge's name derives from John Throckmorton, who first settled Throggs Neck. The traditionally correct spelling is with two "g"s. Robert Moses—chairman of the Triborough Bridge and Tunnel Authority (TBTA), which built the bridge—likely chose the variant with one "g" because it was easier to spell.
Plans for a bridge between Throggs Neck and Queens date to a 1932 study by engineer J. Franklin Perrine. However, he discarded the proposed Throggs Neck-to-Queens span because it would have required the construction of new highways at either end.
The Throgs Neck Bridge's construction was announced in January 1955, by the Port Authority and the TBTA as part of the Port Authority's Joint Study of Arterial Facilities, a $600 million plan to improve highway access in the New York City area (equal to $6.46 billion in 2025). The plan also included the construction of the Verrazzano–Narrows Bridge, the addition of a second deck to the George Washington Bridge, and the completion of connecting highways in and around the city. The Throgs Neck Bridge was to cost $93 million. The span was needed because of increasing congestion on the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge 2 miles (3.2 km) west, which was nearing its traffic capacity by the late 1950s. Traffic loads on the Triborough and Bronx–Whitestone Bridges had more than doubled on both bridges after World War II. The city and Port Authority came to a provisional agreement for the highway arterial plan in late March 1955, and the plan was officially approved by the New York state legislature two weeks later.