3. A key structural design flaw still sways the bridge

As you travel over the Manhattan Bridge, you may notice a slight sway. This sensation is due to a huge engineering flaw that still affects the bridge today. After the reconfiguration of seven lanes and four subway tracks on the outside lanes in the early 1940s, when two trains crossed on opposite sides at the same time, one of the sides would dip four feet to the south side and the other four feet to the north, creating a total roadway deflection of up to eight feet. This problem was only amplified as the trains and amount of people grew heavier with time.

Since the 1980s, New York City Transit has put in roughly $920 million dollars in efforts to fix the bridge’s core infrastructure and after two decades of repairs, it reopened in the early 2000s. The bridge now goes under routine inspections and is structurally sound, but at times you can still feel a sway when a B or Q goes whirling by.