Daily News from New York, New York • 579

nn mm By 6US PALLAS 1 1 l'S! ft-. 1 C-'w? rv-' Daily News Staff Writer Ancient philosophers worried over how many angels could dance on the head of a pin, but that's nothing compared to what New York City and state transportation officials are grappling with now how many vehicles can jam onto the city's bridges when half of the lanes are closed at the same time during the next few years to accommodate monumental repairs. New York City likely will see the greatest gridlock the world has ever known, officials predict. At least half of the lanes on the four East River bridges and four of the Harlem River bridges linking the Bronx to Manhattan will at times be closed on the same days when a $1.75 billion reconstruction program goes full tilt after 1990. A record 1,444,000 motor vehicle trips are made across bridges linking Manhattan to Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx on an average weekday.

About 500,000 drivers and 300,000 subway commuters use the four East River bridges daily, and will be trying to cross when the pinch comes. Worse, repairs periodically will close half of the lanes of two main feeder arteries for the East River bridges, the FDR Drive and the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. 'Severe restrictions' And worse yet," according to the city Transportation Department's first deputy commissioner, Samuel Schwartz, the Williamsburg Bridge may be shut down completely when its four main cables are replaced in the early 1990s, a delicate job that may take two years. If drivers don't switch to mass transit, "severe restrictions" may have to be imposed on Manhattan-bound traffic, he said, such as barring single-occupant cars from entering Manhattan during peak hours, or slapping a $10 fee on low-occupancy cars during rush hours. "What we need is fewer vehicles," Schwartz said.

Assistant Commissioner Michael Primeggia underscored Schwartz' observations. "If people don't change their driving habits, there will be enormous gridlocks," he said. A IIIIIIBI mi i -j II i til '4 In a conference room paneled with bridge construction and traffic flow charts, Schwartz nodded in agreement, and added ruefully that getting drivers to change their habits might be like trying to reform alcoholics. Emergency bans He said he has power to ban single-occupant vehicles in emergencies, and did so during the subway strike of 1980, when cars with fewer than three persons were barred from expressways as well tunnels and bridges to Manhattan. "I wanted to continue prohibiting driver-only cars from coming into Manhattan during peak hours, but the See TRAFFIC Page 2 fcj v- r', fmtm i ill 1 1.

1 iJ WORKERS from American Bridge Co. at work on Manhattan Bridge. Repair is expected to be completed in iyy7 MIHA MWrn DAILY NEWS.