completion of the Tremont section. The 0.6-mile (1 km) Tremont segment from Webster Avenue west to Jerome Avenue opened on February 10, 1961. By that time, all construction contracts for the remaining sections of the expressway had been awarded. Western section The 181st Street Bridge, and the ramps from the bridge to the existing 178th Street Tunnel and a new 179th Street Tunnel in Manhattan, were originally part of the Cross Bronx Expressway. In 1949, workers began widening the 181st Street Bridge, constructing the ramps, and excavating the 179th Street Tunnel. The widening was finished by 1950, and the tunnel and interchange opened on May 5, 1952. Originally, there had not been any plans to construct an interchange with the Major Deegan Expressway, at the highway's western end, because of the area's steep topography and limited space. In December 1952, the city and state reached an agreement to finance the construction of an interchange at that site. Plans for the western end of the expressway were modified substantially after the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced in 1957 that it would construct a lower deck on the George Washington Bridge. To accommodate the additional traffic from the George Washington Bridge, the Trans-Manhattan Expressway and Alexander Hamilton Bridge were to be constructed, connecting the George Washington Bridge and the Cross Bronx Expressway. The revised plans were announced in 1958. At the time, the Alexander Hamilton Bridge was planned to be completed in 1962, but the interchange with the Major Deegan would not open until two years after that. With the opening of the Alexander Hamilton Bridge in April 1963, the $128 million Cross Bronx was completed, but two major interchanges were still incomplete: the Highbridge Interchange with the Major Deegan Expressway (I-87), and the Bruckner Interchange with the Bruckner Expressway (I-95/I-278), the Hutchinson River Parkway, and the Bronx–Whitestone Bridge (I-678). Later modifications The $12.6 million Highbridge Interchange opened in November 1964. The $68 million reconstruction of the Bruckner Interchange, allowing Bruckner Expressway traffic to bypass the old traffic circle, opened on January 2, 1972. (Cross Bronx traffic passing through to the Throgs Neck Bridge had been able to avoid the circle, but drivers taking the Bruckner in either direction, including those bound for New England, had to exit onto the surface.) Effects Urban decay The Cross Bronx Expressway is blamed for worsening the decay of neighborhoods in the