Critical Issues / Priority Topics: Bayonne Bridge

Bayonne Bridge Air Draft Analysis

Prepared for

The Port Commerce Department

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey

Prepared by

United States Army Corps of Engineers

New York District

September 2009

Nation’s Port Annual Meeting Power Point - January 23, 2009

Infrastructure Improvements – Bayonne Bridge Situation Critical
In this most difficult economic time many of our political leaders have identified infrastructure improvements as a critical component of economic recovery. Nowhere in this country can this issue be more important than right here in this region, where 35% of the entire US population is served by the Port of New York and New Jersey. We live in the most affluent consumer market in the world; but we are also located in a highly urbanized area with an infrastructure that started showing its age many decades ago. The most critical component of that infrastructure is the Bayonne Bridge. Failure to address this issue could render the port as obsolete as some of that infrastructure.

The Bayonne Bridge opened in 1931, almost in the time of sailing ships. At that time Port Newark was relatively insignificant compared to the multiple piers up and down the Hudson and East Rivers. Port Elizabeth, as it looks today, didn’t even exist. Seventy-seven years later the four major Newark Bay facilities are the largest and most productive port complex in the nation supporting more than 230,000 port related jobs.

But as you read this, cargo ships calling on the Port are struggling with a height clearance challenge every time they come into and out of the Newark/Elizabeth/Staten Island complex. Often they are forced to fold down their masts or wait for lower tides to pass under the bridge to access the terminals. It is a severe problem. The bridge has only 151 feet of clearance from the surface of the water to the bottom of the bridge’s deck. Only one other major port in the country faces this kind of serious overhead obstruction; and that port has already received some federal funds to start the raising of their span.

There are other bridge-related problems on the horizon. The Panama Canal is being deepened and widened to allow even larger ships to sail directly from the Far East to New York and other ports on the East Coast. Bigger ships are also transiting the Suez Canal direct to New York from Southwest Asia. With the economy in recession, cargo volumes down, and environmental concerns on the rise, steamship lines are laying up smaller vessels in favor of larger more economical and environmentally protective ships. All of these factors create a crisis for this region which may well have been predicted, but which unquestionably must be dealt with.

When it comes to the Port, this region has relied on it almost unknowingly, leaving its operation to government agencies and industry, assuming that it will always be there. The tremendous environmental benefits of having a port in our backyard rather than bringing all that cargo up the road from Virginia or across from Pennsylvania; the economic benefits and jobs created for an entire goods movement industry; the advantage of having a port that is the number one petroleum port in the country, have escaped the attention of most. Only during the dredging crisis in the early nineties did we read about the port and its importance in the local paper.

Other ports, like Norfolk and Charleston, don’t have that problem. They know the value of our cargo operations and have made it their goal to siphon as much of our cargo away from us as is possible. They poach our customers not at all concerned about our lost jobs or increased environmental impact. We won’t stop being the number one consumer region in the nation. The demand for all the products that come through our port, from bananas to Toyotas, will continue. But the cost on our quality of life, and on our infrastructure, will be far greater than the cost to fix the bridge problem.

The chances of this region doing anything about the bridge before 2014 when the Panama Canal reconstruction is completed diminish with every day that passes. We have to do this smartly, but we have to do it without delay.

It is also imperative that the bridge solution simultaneously address its historic significance, local reliance on it, and the problems with Turnpike Exit 14A and Route 440. We must also minimize disruption to the citizens of Bayonne and Staten Island. But any indication that we don’t take this issue seriously now is a clear signal to the ocean carriers and our competition to the south to make plans for our business, and our jobs, to end up there.