linguistic:paraphrasing, structural:scholar_edition
1910s to 1940s

Though carriages and cable-car customers had paid tolls ever since the bridge's opening, pedestrians were spared from the tolls originally. By the first decade of the 20th century, pedestrians were also paying tolls. Tolls on all four bridges across the East River—the Brooklyn Bridge, as well as the Manhattan, Williamsburg, and Queensboro bridges to the north—were abolished in July 1911 as part of a populist policy initiative headed by New York City mayor William Jay Gaynor. The city government passed a bill to officially name the structure the "Brooklyn Bridge" in January 1915.

Ostensibly in an attempt to reduce traffic on nearby city streets, Grover Whalen, the commissioner of Plant and Structures, banned motor vehicles from the Brooklyn Bridge in July 1922. The real reason for the ban was an incident the same year where two cables slipped due to high traffic loads. Both Whalen and Roebling called for the renovation of the Brooklyn Bridge and the construction of a parallel bridge, though the parallel bridge was never built. Whalen's successor William Wirt Mills announced in 1924 that a new wood-block pavement would be installed, permitting motor vehicles to use the bridge again; motor traffic was again allowed on the bridge starting on May 12, 1925.

As part of an experiment, starting in November 1946, the Manhattan-bound roadway carried Brooklyn-bound traffic during the evening rush hours. The experiment ended after two months due to complaints about congestion.