The state's moving forward on its plans for a brand new Tappan Zee Bridge. Some details were surprisingly revealed during Governor Andrew Cuomo's Cabinet meeting Wednesday. Our Solomon Syed joined us from the newsroom with the latest on the project.

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NEW YORK STATE -- A surprise indeed. We thought Wednesday’s press conference would deal more with some "lane changes" in the legislature. Turns out, they made an unexpected turn at the beginning. The bridge selection committee revealed that among three different proposals, they've recommended plan number one.

This plan would cost about $3.14 billion to build and it would take a little more than five years to do it. It would also be mass transit ready and meet environmental requirements.

The two other plans met them too, but came with higher price tags at $3.99 billion and $4 billion.

"They determined it represented the best value. Under the best value definition, price is actually half of that equation. But other things like bridge design, its life span, technical engineering," said Brian Conybeare, Tappan Zee Bridge special advisor.

Now this does not mean proposal one is set in stone. The Thruway Authority has final say and will consider the proposal at a meeting set for December 17th.

If all goes according to plan, the contract will be awarded and construction would then begin after the first of the year in 2013.