NYSA head calls for new Bayonne Bridge

The New York Shipping Association’s president is joining the call for modification, replacement or removal of the Bayonne Bridge so that bigger ships can call terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey.

   The region's infrastructure 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, said Frank McDonough in a guest column in the weekly magazine NJBIZ.

   Richard Larrabee, port commerce director for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, told a conference last fall that finding a way modify or replace the span between Staten Island and Bayonne, N.J., is the biggest issue facing the port.

   The relatively low 151-foot clearance below the bridge prevents large ships from calling the port's main marine container terminals in Newark and Elizabeth, N.J., as well as Staten Island. Already some ships must fold down masts or wait for low tides to pass beneath the span.

   McDonough argues the problem is expected to grow in importance as more big ships come to the port via the Suez Canal, the Panama Canal is expanded, and as in the economic downturn steamship lines lay-up small vessels in favor of larger, more economical and environmentally protective ships. This year the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is scheduled to complete a study, commissioned by the port authority, of the Bayonne Bridge’s air draft.

Source: American Shipper