Larger container ships will soon have access to ports in Elizabeth and Newark after four years of construction finalised in the completion of an elevated deck on the the Bayonne Bridge, which connects Bayonne, New Jersey, with Staten Island, New York City, in the US. You can take a tour of it in the video featured above!
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has reported that crews could start tearing down the old bridge deck next week.
The size of vessels calling at four of the big container terminals at the Western part of the Port of New York-New Jersey (NY-NJ) harbour have so far been restricted.
However, in addition to the Bayonne Bridge work, the channel is being deppened to 15.2 metres in a Port of NY-NJ project costing US$3.4 billion to allow larger ships through.
One lane of traffic is now flowing in each direction on the raised roadway, standing 215-feet above the water between Staten Island and New Jersey, after construction raised the level of the bridge 64-feet higher. Cashless tolling has also been implemented.
The entire project will be completed by 2019, but in order to facilitate the mega-ships instigated by the raising of the Bayonne Bridge in mid-2016, its been reported that New-York and New Jersey must improve truck turnaround times and productivity at its ports.
Local media organisations have been following the story closely:
The new @BayonneBridge is now open! pic.twitter.com/HRJC7yuUd6
— Melissa Estock (@MelissaEstockTV) February 20, 2017
This time-lapse shows the many stages of construction over the last four years:
