Since the bridge wouldn’t exist without his efforts, then-Gov. Andrew Cuomo felt entitled to muscle the Legislature into naming the new trans-Hudson span at the Tappan Zee after his father, the late Gov. Mario M. Cuomo. Turns out the folks who’ll wind up paying for it disagree, and the Legislature seems on track to restore the Tappan Zee Bridge name. Great — but . . .
First off, note that Republicans have pushed the renaming for years, though Democrats have been slowly coming along. Now that Andrew’s safely out of power, state Sen. James Skoufis (a Hudson Valley Democrat) is sponsoring a bill now that should finally do the trick.
Second: Can the renaming not cost the taxpayers a dime, please? Don’t worry about changing the signs until it’s time for routine maintenance. Everyone knows where it is.
Third: Give Mario some recognition. He’s one of just a handful of three-term New York governors — and, while he butted heads with The Post plenty, he also fought hard to save this paper from going out of business in our darkest days.
Since Mario Cuomo was a Queens boy, the Empire Center’s EJ McMahon the Queens-Midtown Tunnel get his name added on, a la the Hugh Carey Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel and the Ed Koch Queensborough Bridge. (The Queens🅷 County Courthouse, where he once argued cases, is another possibility.)
Polls show that residents in Rockland and Westchester — the two counties joined by the crossing — prefer the Tappan Zee Bridge name, and they’ll inevitably suffer a lot of the higher tolls that will pay, eventually, for the nearly $4 billion structure. But let’s not make it all about spite against Andrew: Lawmakers can show some class by still honoring a New York great.