Today the George Washington Bridge is the most travelled bridge in the world and has over 200,000 cars crossing daily. Before the bridge was created the only way to cross was by boat which was expensive and unable to keep up with the growing population. People would sometimes have to wait six to seven hours for a ferry and ice during the winter often prevented any travel. Needless to say the construction of a simpler way to get from New Jersey to New York was desperately needed. 50 years before George Washington bridge was built their were discussions about building a bridge to connect New Jersey and New York but only one design was ever even approved and construction never began due to financing problems. Many years later though the topic was revisited. gustav's a well known engineers dream was to connect New Jersey and the north end of Manhattan with a bridge and he worked tirelessly to achieving this goal but it ended up being his prodigee name who made the highly anticipated dream bridge a reality. Lindenthal gustavs design was mediocre and Amannan knew this so he came up with his own design which earned the support of the newly elected governor of New jersey and together they were able to convince the bi-state port authority to go ahead with Amannan instead of Lindenthal. The design gained so much support because it was far less complex than Gustav's design, was about ten times less expensive, and unlike Gustavs would carry both trains and automobiles. During construction the Great Depression hit and the Bridge project was forced to cut costs. Amannan did this by just leaving the steel frames of the towers bare instead of encasing them in granite and concrete which was his original plan. The bare steel frame towers is today a loved architectural choice and is immediately associated with the George Washington Bridge. The George Washington bridge was opened on October 25, 1931 and at that time was the longest suspension bridge in the world. The tolls were actually planned to only be around for a few years with the amount steadily increases but they are still around today. The original toll rate for all bikes were 25 cents, trucks could be up to one dollar and it was dependent on their weight, and automobiles were charged 50 cents each way. On August 29, 1962 a lower level was added to the bridge increasing the number of traffic lanes to fourteen.

History