Rip van Winkle Bridge

The Rip Van Winkle Bridge is a cantilever bridge spanning the Hudson River between Hudson, New York and Catskill, New York. The structure carries NY 23 across the river, connecting US 9W and NY 385 on the west side with NY 9G on the east side. The bridge is named after the 1819 short story of the same name by Washington Irving, which mentions Hudson and Catskill.

The bridge includes a new pedestrian walkway which was completed in 2018 on the south side of the bridge which is open from dawn to dusk. Cyclists may use the roadway or may walk their cycles across the pedestrian walkway.

The bridge was built by the newly created New York State Bridge Authority, opening on July 2, 1935, at a cost of $2.4 million ($43,860,000 with inflation). Upon its opening, the toll was $0.80 ($14.62 with inflation) per passenger car and $0.10 ($1.83 with inflation) per passenger up to $1 ($18.27 with inflation). Originally, tolls were collected in both directions. In August 1970, the toll was abolished for westbound drivers, and at the same time, eastbound drivers saw their tolls doubled. The tolls of eleven other New York–New Jersey and Hudson River crossings along a 130-mile (210 km) stretch, from the Outerbridge Crossing in the south to the Rip Van Winkle Bridge in the north, were also changed to eastbound-only at that time. The current toll for autos is $1.50 for eastbound traffic only. The bridge extends 5,040 feet (1536 m) across the river, with a ship clearance of 145 feet (44 m).

A multi-year repainting project was completed in 2009 which removed all lead-based paint.

Text imported from Wikipedia article "Rip Van Winkle Bridge" and modified on July 22, 2019 according to the CC-BY-SA 4.0 International license.