Рет қаралды 441
Who's afraid of the Bayonne Bridge?
Why... it's me!
The massive curve of the span creates an optical illusion that looks like the bridge is buckling in the breeze!
I swear, it's true!
Don't believe me? Just watch.
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Bayonne Bridge is an arch bridge spanning the Kill Van Kull and connecting Bayonne, New Jersey with Staten Island in New York City. It carries New York State Route 440 (NY 440) and New Jersey Route 440. It has the sixth-longest steel arch mainspan in the world, and this span was the longest in the world at the time of its completion. The bridge is also one of four connecting New Jersey with Staten Island; the other two roadway bridges are the Goethals Bridge in Elizabeth and Outerbridge Crossing (which also carries Route 440) in Perth Amboy, and the rail-only span is the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge, all of which cross the Arthur Kill.
The original 151-foot (46 m) roadway carried two lanes of motor traffic in each direction, as well as a walkway. Completed in 1931, the Bayonne Bridge was built by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which still operates the bridge. It was designed by Swiss master bridge-builder Othmar Ammann and architect Cass Gilbert.
A project to provide increased clearance required to accommodate New Panamax ships began in 2013, and was completed in two stages between 2017 and 2019. The new roadways each carry two lanes of unidirectional motor traffic plus shoulders for disabled vehicles in addition to a separate path for pedestrians and bicyclists, which opened on May 24, 2019. The desired navigational clearance was achieved June 8, 2017.
Bayonne Bridge was designed by Swiss master bridge-builder Othmar Ammann and architect Cass Gilbert. It spans the Kill Van Kull between Port Richmond in Staten Island, New York, and Bayonne in Hudson County, New Jersey. The bridge was constructed at a 58-degree angle to the Kill Van Kull, parallel to the street networks of both Bayonne and Port Richmond, Staten Island, requiring a longer span than if the bridge had been built perpendicular to the Kill Van Kull.[5] The total length of the bridge is 5,780 feet (1,760 m).
In 1921, the Port of New York Authority (now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) was created to oversee transportation in the Port of New York and New Jersey. At the time, bridges in New York City were being built at a brisk pace. The Port Authority opened its first two bridges between New Jersey and Staten Island in 1928: the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing. A third crossing was being planned between Port Richmond and Bayonne. All three bridges were built to complement the traffic from a future fourth bridge or a tunnel from Staten Island to Brooklyn. Initially, the third crossing was proposed to be a tunnel. However, the Port Authority ultimately decided to construct a bridge, to be designed by Ammann and Gilbert. Ammann, who was chief architect of the Port Authority, chose the steel arch design after rejecting a cantilever and suspension design as expensive and impractical for the site, given a requirement by the Port Authority that the bridge must be able to accommodate the future addition of rapid transit tracks.
Construction on the bridge began in 1928. At the time, it was supposed to be open in early 1932 and was supposed to cost $16 million (equivalent to $273,000,000 in 2022), but it ended up costing only $13 million to build (equivalent to $222,000,000 in 2022). The bridge had to be built without blocking shipping traffic on the Kill Van Kull. To do this, engineers used hydraulic jacks to support the two sides of the arch while the two pieces, consisting of prefabricated truss segments that were made up of high-strength alloy steel, were being built toward a point in a middle. Afterward, prefabricated pieces of the roadway's support structure were hung from cables connected to the arch.
The Bayonne Bridge appears in the 2005 science fiction film War of the Worlds, being shown in the background several times in the scenes set in the lead character's Bayonne home; it is destroyed in an attack by aliens. The bridge and surrounding Bayonne community was also featured in the 2001 film A Beautiful Mind and the HBO prison drama Oz.