Although the Bear Mountain Bridge in Orange County, New York and the Holland Tunnel in Manhattan were under construction, there were then no fixed highway crossings south of Albany.

Caissons weighing 66,000 tons were sunk into the riverbed; dirt was removed by crews working in a pressurized environment.

Primary contractor was the American Bridge Company of Ambridge, Pennsylvania with steel from Carnegie.

The center lane is generally closed, except for rush hour traffic eastbound from 6am to 9am, and westbound from 3pm to 6pm.

Approaches on either side of the bridge are four lanes, causing a bottleneck going onto the one- or two-lane span.

In 2019, the bridge authority announced that tolls on its Hudson River crossings would increase each year beginning in 2020 and ending in 2023.

As of May 1, 2021 the toll for passenger cars traveling eastbound on the Mid-Hudson Bridge was $1.75 in cash, $1.45 for E-ZPass users.