Crews use temporary elevators to access the 419-foot main span towers.
While all eight of the project’s iconic towers have reached their full height at 419 feet above the Hudson River, crews continue to work across the entire main span and its stay cable system. To provide quick and simple access to these sky-high areas, the project team uses a pair of external elevators, attached to the sides of the main span towers.
Although they are only temporary structures, these lifts are capable of safely carrying up to 6,000 pounds at once, far exceeding the average elevator. This is crucial as crew members bring their safety equipment and other heavier materials along for the ride. Even with all of this gear, nearly 20 workers can fit in the lift at once.
An operating engineer manually controls each elevator with a lever.
Operating Engineer Wilfredo Gomez captains the temporary elevator on the easternmost set of towers.
“It’s not like the kind of elevator you’ll find in a shopping mall,” says Mike Bernabo, a member of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 137. “There aren’t any buttons, or assigned stops, and the entire ride is on an angle.”
The Dutchess County resident has been with the project for years, working with machines as small as loaders and as large as the I Lift NY super crane. He started operating one of the project’s two elevators last August.
He and the other operating engineers arrive on the project site before other crews in order to prepare for the day. After 10 hours of commanding the lift, he swaps places with his night shift counterpart around 4 p.m., as main span operations continue into the night and early morning.
Each of the project’s four operators raises the elevators to two key locations. The ground floor is the main span’s football field-long base, where workers arrive by boat. More than 100 feet above the base is the main span roadway, where work continues on the concrete deck and structural steel. The final stop is even higher, 300 feet above the Hudson River, where crews disembark to continue internal work on the main span towers and stay cable system. Workers can then continue their ascent on the project’s temporary walkways and staircases, which provide access to the top of each 419-foot tower.
The temporary elevators will be in use until the project’s completion in 2018. Maintenance crews will then be able to examine the entirety of the 419-foot structure with the assistance of permanent elevators, located within the towers. While these will have much lower carrying capacities, they will have assigned stops at specific maintenance platforms and even reach the top of the towers. The permanent elevators, currently being installed, will travel at a five-degree angle – following the shape of the towers. Maintenance teams will also have access to permanent walkways and caged ladders to perform routine inspections.
Learn more about the night shift on the main span and the bridge’s stay-cable system.
