and made the New England Thruway a part of the thruway toll system. Construction lasted until 1961. I-95 was assigned on August 14, 1957, as part of the establishment of the Interstate Highway System and has always run along its current path in New York. The route was overlaid on the under-construction New England Thruway northeast of New York City and assigned to the then-proposed Cross Bronx and Bruckner expressways through New York City. The thruway opened in October 1958, connecting the Bruckner Expressway and the Connecticut Turnpike. The final sections of the Cross Bronx and Bruckner expressways were finished in 1963 and 1972, respectively. Prior to the 1972 completion of the Bruckner Expressway, coinciding with the completion of the new Bruckner Interchange, the old Bruckner Boulevard (once part of NY 164) was used by through traffic. Trans-Manhattan Expressway The Trans-Manhattan Expressway replaced tunnels under 178th and 179th streets as the crosstown route. The expressway was announced in 1957 and built in conjunction with the addition of the lower level of the George Washington Bridge. Originally known as the George Washington Bridge Expressway, the highway was originally planned as an open cut between 178th and 179th streets, traversed by overpasses carrying the major north–south avenues in Upper Manhattan. The City of New York approved the creation of the highway in June 1957 as part of a joint effort with the PANYNJ that also called for the creation of the lower deck on the George Washington Bridge and construction of the George Washington Bridge Bus Station above the cut for the expressway. The expressway, the main New York approach to the George Washington Bridge, is only long. The projects required demolition of numerous buildings and the relocation of 1,824 families. Overpasses over the open cut passing under Broadway, Wadsworth Avenue, and St. Nicholas Avenue were in place in December 1959. The George Washington Bridge Expressway, with three lanes of traffic heading in each direction to and from each deck of the double-decked George Washington Bridge, opened to traffic in 1962 as part of a $60-million (equivalent to $ in ) program to improve access roads for the George Washington Bridge, whose lower deck opened that same year. The Trans-Manhattan Expressway provides access to and from the Henry Hudson Parkway and Riverside Drive on the West Side of Manhattan and to and from Tenth Avenue and the Harlem River Drive on the