Day 1020

As you can see, work has begun on a multi-year project to build a new roadway through the arch of the Bayonne Bridge, 64 feet above the current one. When the higher roadway is in place and the lower one removed, the bridge will no longer be a navigational obstacle to the jumbo-size container ships that are expected to proliferate once the expansion of the Panama Canal is completed in 2016 or so. (One statistic that puts the importance of this project in perspective: some 12 percent of all international shipping containers in the US pass beneath the Bayonne Bridge on their way to Newark Bay.) The Port Authority has a plan to keep the bridge mostly open to vehicle (though not pedestrian) traffic during construction.