Daily News from New York, New York • 372

2 KL Sunday, November 9, 1986 DAILY NEWS GIL Hodges-Memorial Bridge has been adjudged in good shape due to its preventive maintenance program. CHARLES FHATTINI DAILY NEWS iL XX WILLIAMSBURG Bridge is going through an 11 continuing program to upgrade the span. Jit 'K and subway lines. The Transit Authority says that the bridge's problems have an impact on subway riders by stretching delays from 15 minutes to about 45 minutes. Also under reconstruction is the pedestrian walkway on the westerly side of the Manhattan Bridge.

The roadways of both the east and west upper roadway also are slated for repairs. Lots more work ahead The first phase of the present rehabilitation of the Williamsburg Bridge, completed in 1983, was the reconstruction of both outer roadways between the bridge towers. In addition, every third suspender rope was replaced last year. Other contracts call for repairs to the bridge foundation and replacement of the bulkhead adjacent to the BRIDGES FROM PAGE ONE tracts call for repair of steel members in the floor systems on the suspended spans and approaches and the rehabilitation and painting of the Brooklyn and Manhattan approaches and ramps. Reconstruction of the Manhattan Bridge has caused the re-routing of trains a problem that has been exacerbated when engineers discovered that deterioration was far worse than suspected.

The stumbling block is the extensive corrosion to one of the bridge's four giant cables. The corrosion reduced the strength of the bridge. It will be at least 16 months before the repair is completed. The 77-year-old bridge, a heavily travelled route between Brooklyn and lower Manhattan, carries more than 45,000 vehicles each day, and more than 200,000 passengers on the Irtnnram CQU2b Ever wonder why always or almost always a bridge seems to be closed to vehicular traffic, but not to boat traffic, during the height of the rush-hour traffic when car drivers are inching then-way to work or home? Those drivers who had to wait-. wait for a slow sail boat or barge to negotiate its way across a canal shouldn't blame some city Transportation Department bureaucrat with a warped sense of humor.

The blame rests on Uncle Sam. Long before there were cars and trucks indeed, even before trains canals were the main route of transportation in the country, and the law of the land decreed, that barges had the right of 1 1 II i 915 8 Under Coast Guard regulations, bridges must be open on a signal from vessels on the waterways. The Coast Guard evaluates various situations for allowing bridges to remain closed during the rush hour. In some cases, however, keeping the bridges open to vehicular traffic cannot be done because of low and high tides. The Gowanus Canal, for instance, is very narrow and shallow.

Mariners have to take advantage of the tide to navigate it There are two tides a day and these don't come at the same time each day. Tides usually vary by as much as an hour each day, and in the case of the Gowanus, boats can only navigate the waterway during high tide. Albert Davila 11 I' 1.