Summary: <p style="font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">You would never look at a <a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=210862890723521933918.0004aa199afc0c9981e5c&msa=0&ll=41.071069,-73.891296&spn=0.310076,0.441513" target="_blank">map</a> of the Hudson River, point to the spot where the Tappan Zee Bridge is, and say, "Put the bridge here!"</p><p style="font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">The Tappan Zee crosses one of the widest points on the Hudson — the bridge is more than three miles long. And if you go just a few miles south, the river gets much narrower.</p><p style="font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Our question for today's show: Why did they build a three-mile-long bridge when they could have built a much shorter, cheaper bridge nearby?</p><p style="font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;">Our search for an answer leads us to a forensic engineer, the Statue of Liberty, and a governor who wanted to be an opera singer.</p><p style="font-size: 14px; margin: 0px 0px 10px;"><em>This episode was originally released in <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2011/08/09/139276566/the-tuesday-podcast-a-big-bridge-in-the-wrong-place" target="_blank">August, 2011</a>.</em></p>
