page_title: Bayonne Bridge
section_title: Roadbed-raising project
hierarchical_section_title: Bayonne Bridge / History / Roadbed-raising project
caption_attribution_description: pont bayonne
context_page_description: The Bayonne Bridge is an arch bridge spanning the Kill Van Kull connecting Bayonne, New Jersey, with Staten Island, New York City. It carries New York State Route 440 and New Jersey Route 440. It is the fifth-longest steel arch bridge in the world, and it 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 in Perth Amboy, and the rail-only span is the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge, all of which cross the Arthur Kill.
  The original 155-foot roadway carried two lanes of motor traffic in each direction, as well as a walkway. A project to provide increased clearance required to accommodate New Panamax ships began in 2013. Half of the new 215-foot roadway was opened to one lane of traffic each northbound and southbound on February 20, 2017, and the second half of the roadway was fully opened on February 11, 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.
context_section_description: In the 2000s, the Port Authority started planning on a project to allow larger container ships to use the Kill Van Kull.  The expansion of the Panama Canal, allowed large ships coming from Asia to reach the East Coast, but the bridge was too low for these larger ships to pass under it on the way to and from Newark Bay.  Its clearance of between 151 to 156 feet (46–48 m) above the Kill Van Kull depending on the tide already meant that some contemporary ships, which could reach 175 feet (53 m) above the waterline, had to fold down antenna masts, take on ballast, or wait for low tide to pass through.
  New, larger "New Panamax" ships made things worse.  If the problem were not fixed, the Port of New York and New Jersey could have lost significant shipping business to other ports such as Charleston, South Carolina.  In August 2009, the Port Authority started a planning analysis to determine how to fix the air draft problem.
caption: The bridge with its original deck, seen at sunset
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