A cargo ship hit and collapsed a Baltimore bridge. How safe are North Jersey bridges?

Debbie Waldeyer, NorthJersey.com
Updated ·2 min read

Only a few North Jersey bridges cross a span big enough to handle a cargo ship and would therefore be susceptible to being hit by such a ship, as happened early Tuesday to the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, collapsing it and tossing vehicles into the water.

A $1.6 billion project was completed in 2017 raising the Bayonne Bridge from 151 feet to 215 to accommodate newer, much larger cargo vessels. The bridge spans the Kill Van Kull between Bayonne and Staten Island. The center span is 1,675 feet, compared with the 1,200-foot center span of the Key Bridge. The Key Bridge clearance was 185 feet.

In 2017 and 2018 the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey also replaced the original Goethals Bridge, built in 1928, with a new span. The Goethals crosses the Arthur Kill between Elizabeth, New Jersey and Staten Island. It has a 138.5-foot clearance and 900 feet wide center span.

New Jersey has nearly 7,000 bridges across thousands of miles of local, county and state roads — and nearly 20% of them are in need of repair. Hundreds are rated in poor condition by the U.S. Department of Transportation, and hundreds more as "structurally deficient."

In Bergen County, nearly 1 out of 4 bridges rates as in need of repair ― among the highest rates in New Jersey.

More: NJ Turnpike Authority approves design money for disputed $11B widening project

More: NY-NJ ports surpass California as busiest in US with historic levels in 2022

To see a detailed listing of all the bridges in New Jersey ― and those in your neighborhood ― visit NorthJersey's DataDive page of bridge inspections.

The bridge inspection data has complete listings, a clickable map and ratings and locations for each bridge in New Jersey.

And check out our complete data sets, which include everything from mortgage rates to weather data to community crime statistics to hospital statistics and much, much more.

This article originally appeared on NorthJersey.com: How safe are North Jersey bridges?