The Third Avenue Bridge in the Bronx isn’t on the list of New York’s most deficient bridges, having undergone a complete rebuild in 2005 after a $118 million investment, according to the New York City Department of Transportation. It’s a swing bridge, which spins around a central axis like a carousel, creating a space through which taller boats can pass.
Yet in the summer of 2024, a heat wave expanded the steel of the bridge so much that it got stuck in the open position, jamming traffic for hours while the New York City Fire Department hosed down the expanded joints.
As New York is increasingly battered by heat waves, flooding, sea level rise and other effects of climate change, its infrastructure as well as its people will face new kinds of threats. Videos of subway stations spouting rivers of water after heavy rainfall have brought to people’s attention the vulnerability of low-lying infrastructure, but bridges are vulnerable as well.