Bayonne Bridge Segmental Approaches in Construction Engineering

The Bayonne Bridge, which spans the Kill van Kull Channel connecting Staten Island, New York, and the city of Bayonne, New Jersey, was opened for traffic in 1931. When opened it was the longest arch span in the world with a main span of 1,675 feet, a total length of 5,789 feet, and a mid-span vertical clearance of 150 feet. In the early 2000s, the owner of the bridge, The Port Authority of NY and NJ, decided to raise the bridge deck of the arch to provide a minimum clearance of 215 ft and build new, taller approaches. The new navigation clearance allows neopanamax ships access to the port of Newark. The new approaches are precast-segmental built with the balanced-cantilever method using an overhead gantry. The crowded urban site required construction over residences and active businesses within the footprint of the existing bridge without major traffic interruptions. Consequently, permanent works, temporary works, and construction staging were constrained by the existing bridge. This paper presents an overview (from the independent checker’s perspective) of the construction engineering required to accomplish this task.