Garden State Parkway opens world's widest bridge - 15 lanes

New span under construction Alfred Driscoll, governor 1947-54 after whom the bridge is named Looking north Aug 05, new span on left. At the right are six lanes of US9 on a tax funded bridge. Pic taken from near Raritan Toll Plaza by P Samuel.

The new span opened yesterday on the world's widest bridge - 15 travel lanes plus six shoulder lanes. It's the Driscoll Bridge carrying the Garden State Parkway over the shipping channel of the Raritan River in Perth Amboy NJ, 42km (26mi) southwest of Central Park in Manhattan. The bridge is located at the transition point between the beach resort and developing areas of the Jersey Shore and the established suburbs and industrial areas of northern New Jersey.

Actually the full 21 travel and shoulder lanes of the Driscoll Bridge will not be available for two more years because the existing 12 lane span (no shoulders) is being taken out of service for redecking and all the traffic will, in the interim, be on the new span. Yesterday saw traffic on just one lane. The switchover to the new span is being orchestrated in stages over the next several weeks.

Pips the GWB and Verrazano

The world's widest - as measured by number of lanes - bridge at present is the George Washington Bridge operated by the PANYNJ with 14 lanes. The next widest in the US is the Tribrough Authority's Verrazano Narrows Bridge of 12 travel lanes, no shoulder lanes. Third is the Bay Bridge in San Francisco of ten lanes. All these are double decked (the east span of the Bay bridge is side by side) and all are toll financed.

The new Wilson Bridge presently under construction to carry the Capital Beltway over the Potomac River near Alexandria VA will be 12 travel lanes plus eight shoulder lanes - financed with taxes, thanks to the special indulgence of the DC area by Uncle Sam.

Dimensions

The Garden State Parkway's $220m project will widen the Driscoll Bridge from 12 to 15 lanes and add six shoulder lanes. At 21 lanes total it will pip the Wilson Bridge's 20 lanes.

All lanes of the Driscoll are to be 3.3m (11 foot) in width as compared to 3m (10ft) of the existing bridge. 230k veh/day presently use the bridge but this is expected to surpass 300k in the future as the Jersey Shore develops.

Northbound will have eight travel lanes, one more than southbound because of the major exits just north of the bridge to I-287 and the Turnpike proper. The eight lanes northbound will be organized into two roadways (or carriageways) of four travel lanes each and shoulder lanes each side, occupying all of the existing bridge when redecking is completed in 2008. The eastern roadway northbound will serve four interchanges within 10km (6mi) while the other or central roadway northbound will serve traffic continuing on the Parkway beyond the interchanges.

Southbound, where interchanges beyond the bridge are smaller and further off, there will be a single seven lane roadway with shoulder lanes each side - to eventually occupy the full width of the new westside bridge opened today.

The new span has a deck 28.3m (93ft) wide and 1,335m (4379ft) long of 27 steel plate girder spans rising to provide a navigation channel clearance under of 41m (135ft). The navigation span is 76m (250ft) long.

The existing bridge was itself built in two stages - the first of 18.3m (60ft) opened with the Parkway in 1955 and was striped for 2x2 lanes plus shoulders. In 1957 traffic caused it to be restriped to 2x3 lanes of 3m (10ft) each, no shoulder at all. In 1972 a second similar span was built alongside to bring the bridge deck to 39.6m (130ft) and each side was restriped to 5 lanes with righthand shoulder on each. In the early 1980s the shoulders were eliminated and the bridge made 6 lanes each direction, no shoulder.

Tolling modernized

Tolling on this segment of the Parkway is now southbound only and most of the traffic is tolled at full highway speed under the world's widest Open Road Toll (ORT) frame gantry - serving five travel lanes at the Raritan toll plaza.

Funding for the bridge and tolling upgrades could not be done with Garden State Parkway toll rates - among the lowest in the world. However profits on the New Jersey Turnpike proper were used to support the bonds. The New Jersey Highway Authority which previously owned the Parkway was abolished soon afterwards and the Parkway brought under the Turnpike's jurisdiction - a merger which facilitates cross-subsidies to the low toll parkway.

Driscoll - New Jersey's great builder

The Driscoll Bridge is named after Alfred E Driscoll (1902-1975), the remarkable Jersey governor who used tolling to finance construction of almost the full length of both the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike - 454km (282mi) of "superhighway" as they called it then - within two terms of office half a century ago (1947-54). Driscoll was an urban planner, and a Republican state senator before running for office championing the tollroads.

Subterfuge of a "rebuild" covered contract

Environmental groups, of course, opposed the construction. Interestingly the project was always officially referred to during the term of Governor James McGreevey as a "rebuild" with no mention of any widening at all. McGreevey's press release 29 Aug 2002 announced a contract "to rebuild the Garden State Parkway's Driscoll bridge over the Raritan River." The contract being announced provided for no rebuilding whatever. It was for the construction of the grand new span opened today. The contract for the rebuild came much later - flimflam apparently intended to quiet enviros.

No news

You might think the new span on the world's widest bridge would generate something official from the Turnpike. Wrong. No press release, no fact sheet, nothing on their website. The Turnpike doesn't have a functioning news office. TOLLROADSnews 2006-04-11