(Update: RoadTraffic-Technology article)
Significance:1. Aesthetically striking steel arch span bridge designed by prominent bridge designer andengineer, Othmar H. Ammann2. World’s longest steel bridge for nearly half a century3. First use of manganese steel (for main arch ribs and rivets) in bridge construction4. First use of falsework for construction of an arch of this span
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Photo from HAER NJ,9-BAYO,1-11 from nj1025BAYONNE BRIDGE, FROM OVER STATEN ISLAND LOOKING NORTH - Bayonne Bridge, Spanning Kill Van Kull between Bayonne & Staten Island, Bayonne, Hudson County, NJ |
Southland Holdings posted there photos with the comment:
From the AB Archives: 93 years ago, AB completed the construction of the Bayonne Bridge. The Bayonne Bridge spans the busy Kill Van Kull waterway between Staten Island, NY and Port Richmond, NJ. This 5,780’ bridge acts as the main navigational entrance to the Port of NY & NJ, featuring a 1,675’ steel through arch main span. Upon completion, it stood as the world's longest steel arch bridge, a record it held until 1977. The arch was erected using temporary steel bent falsework and a kingpost assist to maximize cantilever reach. Specially designed “A” frame arch travelers were used for the arch erection. The arch has a 266’ rise and contains 16,667 tons of structural steel. The field erection of the arch and approaches encompassed over 26,000 tons, and was completed in 18 months utilizing 287,000 manhours.In recent years, AB completed several strengthening projects including the addition of 60 new main-span longitudinal girders, each spanning 40' between floor beams.
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| 2 Bridges Now and Then posted Bayonne Bridge construction, c. 1929. (American Bridge Archives) |
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Nathan Holth on his Historic Bridges page complained about the lack of documentation for the new bridge. I share his frustration. Normally for a new bridge, you can find proposed alternatives, concept illustrations, environmental impact statements, and/or materials for public presentations. The only concept illustration I could find is this little one on their About page. Traffic had to use two lanes instead of four lanes during the six years of construction, but they were able to get rid of the lower roadway under the arch by 2017 to make room for New Panamax ships.
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| Michael E Pearson posted Bayonne Bridge, connecting Bayonne, NJ with Staten Island, NY, on state route 440. Opened in 1931, its main span is 1675 feet long [510m], 25 feet [7.6m] longer than its sister bridge at Sydney Harbour in Australia. The Bayonne Bridge deck was lifted by 64 feet [19.5m] between 2013-2019 to allow clearance for Panama Canal (Panamax) vessels. The Captain Dann floats underneath the bridge, headed to Newark Bay. |
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| About |
The deck on this bridge has been raised 64' to allow super-panmax ships to access container terminals on the other side. They are also having to dredge a deeper channel, 51'-57' depending on the stage of the tide. The 2000' wide Ambrose Channel starts twelve miles out in the ocean. It was built in 1931 with a clearance of 151'. In the mid 20th Century, the Port Authority predicted that the superstructure of ships in the future would top 190'. Pieces of the roadway over the water were removed by lowering them onto barges. The new channel was tested with a new container ship, CMA CGM Theodore Roosevelt, that is 1200'x158'x52.5' and can hold 14,414 containers. The previous maximum capacity was 9,400 containers. That ship stopped at other east coast ports before it docked at NYC. That would reduce its draft to below 51'. In fact, it was just 40.85'. This ship went under the Bayonne Bridge on Sept. 7, 2017. The wheelhouse on this ship was at the same height as the old roadway. "According to Port Authority statistics from a few years ago, seven million vehicles cross the Bayonne every year. About a hundred and three million vehicles use the George Washington." The bridge won't be finished until 2019. [NewYorker, pay count of 4. Some of the article talks about how dangerous the Kill Van Kull strait is to navigate because of tides coming in from both sides and a sharp turn in the shipping channel. The article also discusses Ammann, who was the designer of this and several other major bridges, and the harbor and sea pilots.]
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| safe_image for The Bayonne Bridge's New and Higher Road Deck |
The Bayonne Bridge spans the Kill Van Kull waterway that separates Staten Island, NY and Bayonne, NJ. It is an arch bridge and another creation by Othmar Ammann. The Bayonne opened on Nov 15, 1931 and was the longest arch bridge in its time. Today it is the 6th longest arch span in the world.The top pic is the original bridge...the bottom is the raised version which allows clearance for taller ships into NYC.
Guy Olsen: Impressive feat of engineering, but it was uglified as a result.
Steve Dumaine: here's a timelapse of the raising job: amazing stuff!
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| Bob Begin commented on Spiro's post |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted The Bayonne Bridge, linking Staten Island, NY, and Bayonne, NJ, seen c. 1930. (Staten Island Advance) Dave Frieder: Most of the design for the new road deck was by former Port Authority Chief Engineer, Jim Starace. Raised from 151 feet to 215 feet. MWH. EM Payette: This was blown up in War of the Worlds? Tommy Flett: EM Payette : yes. I lived a block away from the bridge and watched the film it every day. Christopher White: Interesting bit about the improved bridge, the precast concrete parts were poured in Cape Charles, Virginia, and floated up the Chesapeake Bay, to the C&D Canal, and out to the Delaware Bay, and up to Bayonne. Thomas Pianetti: Worked on the nj abutment rebuild in 2003 and the raising in 2014. Surveyed on both. |
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| Dave Frieder commented on the above post Engineer of Design, Allston Dana. Great bridge to climb and photograph! |
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| Anthony Noa commented on the above post, cropped This is the Bayonne Bridge today , with a New roadway deck raised 64 feet higher to accommodate the new bigger Panamax ships. |
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| Greg Villani commented on the above post demoing the old roadway. most definitely my favorite job. |
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| Port of NY Authority via Historic Bridges, p13 |
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| Port of NY Authority via Historic Bridges, p7 [I included this image because it helps put in perspective the immense scale of the bridge.] |
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| Second Progress Report via Historic Bridges, p13 [Look at the list of the derrick boat.] |
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| Second Progress Report via Historic Bridges, p16, rotated [This shows the temporary piers or falsework and the temporary support above the second pier so that they can cantilever the remainder of the arch and avoid putting a pier in the navigation channel.] |
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| Second Progress Report via Historic Bridges, p20 [I didn't realize that the navigation channel was so far off-center until I saw this image.] |
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| Dedication via Historic Bridges, p7 [Given the stone encasement of the abutments, this is obviously a concept illustration. Like the towers of his George Washington Bridge, Ammann obviously intended for the steel work to be covered by stonework. But the depression happened before the bridges were completed, so the stone work, which was purely decorative, was skipped. Some people have argued that the raw strength of the towers looks better without a stone facade.] |
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| Bridges Now and Then posted Building the Bayonne Bridge, spanning the Kill Van Kull, connecting Bayonne, New Jersey, with Staten Island, New York, c. 1930. (LI Salzman Architects) |
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| Michael Pawlek commented on BN&T's post I saw this in a junk shop in Staten Island just yesterday |
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| Dave Frieder commented on BN&T's post ORIGINALLY known as the Kill Van Kull bridge. Engineer of design, Allston Dana. Modeled after the Hell Gate Bridge. |
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| LC-DIG-highsm- 45369 Credit line: Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division. Carol M. Highsmith's photographs are in the public domain. |
A street view catches the original steel girder approach spans and the new precast segmented partial approach spans. Before they can finish the new piers and approach spans, they need to remove the old roadway. After the second part of the new piers are built, they can remove the yellow pipes.
Since it is supposed to be finished this year (2019), I really don't need a concept illustration because the web cam shows what it is supposed to look like. Evidently, it is still not done because their web page indicates the pedestrian walkway is closed, and it is still displaying Nov 4, 2013, truck restrictions due to the construction.
(new window) Among other things, this video animates how a travelling gantry installs the precast segments for the new approach spans.
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This container terminal doesn't care about the height of the Bayonne Bridge. But these are the terminals I found that do care: New York Container Terminal, APM Terminals (can handle ships in both Newark Bay and Elizabeth Channel), and Port Elizabeth Terminal Corporation.
While looking for container terminals, I found these two RoRos (Roll-On, Roll-Off) in dock. Since I've never seen one with their ramp out, I wanted to capture this image.
Update:
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| Street View |
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| 3D Satellite [I saved an image because this catches the phase where the new deck is full width, but the approaches can't be finished because the old deck still exists.] |
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| Web Cam, accessed Apr 28, 2019 |
(new window) Among other things, this video animates how a travelling gantry installs the precast segments for the new approach spans.
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This container terminal doesn't care about the height of the Bayonne Bridge. But these are the terminals I found that do care: New York Container Terminal, APM Terminals (can handle ships in both Newark Bay and Elizabeth Channel), and Port Elizabeth Terminal Corporation.
While looking for container terminals, I found these two RoRos (Roll-On, Roll-Off) in dock. Since I've never seen one with their ramp out, I wanted to capture this image.
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| Toyota Logistics Services |
Update:
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| RoadsBridges-general [The lanes are widened from 10' to 12' and a median barrier plus two 5' shoulders are added. By keeping the construction within the current footprint, they reduced the environment planning phase from four years to eight months.] And they did not displace residential homes that were within 20' of the work site. [RoadsBridges-2018] |
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| RoadsBridges-general With additional weight on the structure and increased wind loads, the team added more than 4,000 tons of steel plates to strengthen the arch....More than 100,000 rivets were replaced with high-strength bolts as part of the strengthening process. |
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| RoadsBridges-early The $1.6B project finished around Jun 30, 2017, which was 6 months ahead of schedule. It raised the clearance from 151' to 215'. |
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| safe_image for Massive container ship - bigger than 4 football fields - sets record under Bayonne BridgeThe CMA CGM Brazil passes under the Bayonne Bridge in Bayonne on Saturday, Sept. 12, 2020.Dustin Niles | For NJ Advance Media "The 1,200-foot-long CMA CGM Brazil, the largest container ship [at 15,072 TEUs] ever to call on the bi-state port, or any other port on the U.S. East Coast, for that matter....That $5.3 billion investment includes a $1.7 billion raising of the Bayonne Bridge roadway [to 215'], a $2.1 billion deepening of harbor channels [to 50'], and a $600 million ship-to-rail container transport system." [The article has a couple of more photos of the ship.] |
And now they are up to 16,022 TEUs.
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| The largest container ship to ever visit the East Coast just arrived at the Port of New York and New Jersey: Meet the Marco Polo (source) [The Chicago Tribune also had a variant of this news. It is not common for shipping news to make the business section of the CT.] |
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| Bayonne Office of Emergency Management posted Bayonne resident Corey Tierney caught this amazing shot of the Bayonne Bridge as the storm rolled through tonight. Thank you Corey for sharing! |
United States beauty posted five photos with the comment:
The Bayonne Bridge is an iconic arch bridge that connects Bayonne, New Jersey, with Staten Island, New York, crossing the Kill Van Kull tidal strait. Opened in 1931, the bridge was designed by Othmar Ammann, a renowned Swiss-American engineer, and has one of the longest steel arch spans in the world, measuring 1,675 feet [511m]. It was the longest of its kind when it first opened, demonstrating both aesthetic elegance and engineering innovation.The bridge is part of Route 440 and serves as a vital link for commuters, commercial traffic, and cargo transport between New Jersey and Staten Island. It has also been crucial for access to New York Harbor, particularly as the Port of New York and New Jersey has expanded. In recent years, a significant “Raise the Roadway” project raised the clearance beneath the bridge to accommodate larger, modern container ships, increasing it from 151 [46m] feet to 215 feet[66m]. This project, completed in 2019, preserved the bridge’s functionality in the face of changing global shipping standards.Managed by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, the Bayonne Bridge remains a vital artery in the region’s transportation network. Its preservation and modernization efforts ensure its continued role in facilitating trade, travel, and regional commerce.
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