Daily News from New York, New York • 88

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1 ri: 1 'VTtirfi Jirfr ftWHfTiiWriinWWr -wrtri mi w. W1f Williamsburg Bridge at night is one of jewels of city skyline, but on closer look span has serious aging problems. fc jmik if By OWEN FITZGERALD 82,650 vehicles each day. Once the Brooklyn outer route is fixed, similar citywide bridge rehabilitation program. State transportation officials said on Sept.

17 that the suspension cables on the Williamsburg span were rotting and estimated that it would cost $120 million to replace them. They ruled out any possibility of collapse but warned that the bridge would be impassable to both vehicular and subway traffic in the event of any cable collapse. City authorities countered that there was no danger of cables snapping. They said alternative and far less expensive repair procedures were under consideration. The cable repairs are not part of the roadwork which got under way yesterday and are not included in the $85 million repair-cost estimate.

The Williamsburg Bridge opened Dec. 19, 1903, 20 years after the Brooklyn Bridge. It was the last of major bridges with lanes to accommodate horse-drawn carriages and wagons. Transit-line tracks followed. THE BRIDGE, between Delancy and Clinton Sts.

on the lower East Side and Broadway and Roebling St. at Washington Plaza in Williamsburg, is 7,300 feet long, 135 feet above the river and 332 feet high. Mayor Seth Low and Brooklyn Borough President J. Edward Swanstrom presided at opening day ceremonies in 1903. TRANSPORTATION offi-I cials yesterday shut down one X3 Brooklyn-bound inner lane of the Williamsburg Bridge to start an $85-million rehabilitation of the span.

The work is expected to snarl traffic for the next two years. The inner lane will be closed on weekdays from 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. to allow preparatory work for the first major repair phase on the adjacent Brooklyn-bound outer roadway. The start-up date for that is Oct.

12, Columbus Day. The road closings will affect all traffic, but the 6,100 trucks which daily travel to Brooklyn are expected to be especially hard hit by the closing. FOR THE NINE-MONTH period beginning next month, all Brooklyn-bound trucks will be banned from the bridge on its inner roadway because that route is not high enough or wide enough to accommodate them. City highway personnel and Port Authority officers at the crossings began distributing leaflets to truckers yesterday, warning them of the Williamsburg Bridge closings. The notices suggested detours to the Manhattan Bridge or the Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel.

Truck traffic is banned on the Brooklyn Bridge. Large detour signs will be erected and traffic-control agents and police will be assigned to critical intersections to smooth traffic flow. Motorists repairs will be made to the Manhattan-bound outer lanes. II 1 4 4 If? 1 5 Early in the century, horses, wagons and pedestrians were bridge's major burden. Today, trucks and subways have speeded deterioration.

FUTURE WORK ON the bridge, which carries the and subway lines, includes reinforcement of the two towers, suspender-rope replacement, repairs of all remaining roadways and the pedestrian promenade. It is all part of an $800-million, 10-year also are being advised to use the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges. Work on the outer roadway to repair the deteriorated roadbed will cost $10.7 million and will mark the first step in an $85-million overhaul of the 78-year-old span, which carries an average of Conservatives to pick candidate Page 10 Army Terminal deal in limbo? Page 3.