The westbound side of the upper level of the George Washington Bridge was shut down Tuesday night after a shooting, and the closure quickly turned the crossing into a choke point for drivers trying to leave New York City. The Port Authority Police Department also received reports just after 7 p.m. of a single-vehicle crash mid-span.
Officers found the driver with a gunshot wound to the head and took the person to Englewood Medical Center in critical condition. All lanes on the westbound side of the bridge were closed, and traffic backed up across the Bronx to the Major Deegan Expressway while eastbound traffic crawled toward New York City.
That pattern made the shutdown especially disruptive because commercial vehicles can only use the upper level. When that level closed, it did not just slow one direction of travel. It cut off a route that carries a large share of the bridge’s heavy traffic, and the effect spread in both directions almost immediately.
What police have not explained is what led to the shooting in the first place. The circumstances were not immediately known, and no arrests had been made as of the report. The Port Authority Police Department was heading up the investigation, leaving the key question still open: how a crash report on one of the region’s busiest spans turned into a shooting scene with a driver fighting for life.
For now, the bridge is back in focus not as a symbol or a skyline fixture, but as a place where one violent episode was enough to stop traffic, strand commuters and send an injured driver to the hospital in critical condition.
