MNN - Mother Nature Network

NPR has a great story about New York's Tappan Zee Bridge, which crosses the Hudson River. The bridge is more than three miles long and oddly sits at a point just a few miles from a much narrower part of the river. Why in the world did they build the bridge there?

 

Politics. New York's then Gov. Thomas E. Dewey needed the bridge's toll money to help fund his pet project, the New York thruway, and if the bridge had been built on the more narrow section of the river, the toll money would have gone to the Port Authority, which controlled the land that provided the more narrow crossing.

 

Planet Money did a great piece for the story on Morning Edition; click over and give a listen to David Kestenbaum's story.

 

It's good to be governor.