Goethals Bridge
Encyclopedia : G : GO : GOE : Goethals Bridge
The Goethals Bridge (pronounced "GŌ-thüls") connects Elizabeth, New Jersey to Staten Island, New York over the Arthur Kill. It is operated by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and was one of the first structures built by the authority. The bridge is part of Interstate 278. The bridge is named for Major General George W. Goethals, builder of the Panama Canal and the first consulting engineer of the Port Authority.
A steel truss cantilever design by John Alexander Low Waddell, the bridge is 205 m long (672 feet) central span, 2,621 m long (8,600 feet) in total, 18.9 m wide (62 feet), has a clearance of 41.15 m (135 feet) and has four lanes for traffic. The authority had $3 million of state money and raised $14 million in bonds to build the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing, the Goethals bridge construction began on September 1, 1925 and cost $7.2 million. It and the Outerbridge Crossing were opened on June 29, 1928. The Goethals Bridge replaced three ferries and augmented the existing Arthur Kill rail bridge. Its unusual mid-span height was a requirement of the New Jersey ports.
Connecting onto the New Jersey Turnpike, it is one of the main routes for traffic between there and Brooklyn via the Staten Island Expressway and the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. Until the bridge to Brooklyn was completed in 1964 the Goethals Bridge never turned a profit. The total traffic in 2002 was 15.68 million vehicles.
A New Goethals Bridge?
The Goethals Bridge has two 10-foot (3 m) lanes in each direction, which do not meet today’s 12-foot (3.7 m) wide highway design standards and has no shoulders for emergency access. To meet modern standards and to address deficienties on the bridge, a whole new span that would serve both traffic flows. A study in 1997 concluded that the optimal solution would be a parallel span. However, a recent study said that the existing span only had 10 years of life left...even with the recent deck rehabilitation. The study now says that the optimal solution would be to build an entirely new span. However, both of these plans are still on the list of alternatives as well as the "no build" option, to name a few. Most likely, the new bridge would also include wider lanes, a six lanes of traffic, high speed E-Z Pass lanes, as well as recounstruction and widening of I-278 from exit 4 in New York (NY 440 South) to NJ 439 in New Jersey.External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.