By Michael Hill
Correspondent
A time-lapse video of the billion-dollar project to expand the Panama Canal. Work just finished and the widened canal can begin accommodating some of the world’s biggest container ships from the Far East.
The Port Authority is raising the roadway of the Bayonne Bridge from 151 to 215 feet above the Kill Van Kull’s waters to accommodate those supersize ships to reach the Port of Newark. Harsh weather and construction challenges are delaying completion until 2017. In a statement, the Port Authority tells NJTV News, “The new timeline for the ‘Raise the Roadway’ project will not prevent the largest container vessels from reaching our port. In fact, the largest ships are not likely to call on other ports until they reach our port first, given the size of the consumer market that our port serves.”
“Our port” refers not to the Port of Newark but to the Port of New York and New Jersey in Bayonne where the supersize ships don’t have to go under the Bayonne Bridge. In fact, the PA says the first ship to pass through the new Panama Canal will dock at the Port of New York and New Jersey next week and it will be the biggest ever to dock there.
Authorities at the Port of Baltimore say it means the Port of Newark will miss out initially on some of the bigger boat business and Newark’s loss is Baltimore’s gain with an expanded Panama Canal.
“It’s really a game changer for the Port of Baltimore as it is for the entire maritime industry. The Port of Baltimore is actually only one of three East Coast ports that today can welcome the largest ships in the world,” said Maryland Port Administration Director of Communications Richard Scher.
Scher says the Maryland Port Administration in 2010 entered in to a public-private partnership to acquire four massive cranes and dredge a 50-foot container berth to accommodate the supersize ships and their cargo. He says it means Maryland can compete with Miami and Norfolk, Virginia, for bigger ships and more jobs.
“Right now, Port of Baltimore is Maryland’s largest economic generators. We at the port generate 13,000 direct jobs and there are nearly 130,000 in the state of Maryland that are linked to the Port of Baltimore. Other ports on the East Coast are trying to get to where Baltimore is,” Scher said.
For now, the delayed raising of the roadway of the Bayonne Bridge next year and the completion of the whole project in 2019 mean more headaches for Bayonne residents.
“Cracks in the wall, medicine cabinet fell. Pictures, stuff like that has fallen off the wall,” said Bayonne resident Nicole Poesl.
Poesl is not describing the impact of an earthquake, just what’s happened since the Port Authority began construction in 2013 to raise the Bayonne Bridge.
“It’s kind of annoying because my house was beautifully painted at one time,” she said.
It’s been a rough ride for folks living near the Bayonne Bridge the last couple of years but City Hall says it’s been intervening and says it has their back.
“We all know that the bridge is going to get done. Has to get done. It’s a major impact on the whole northeast of the United States so this is something that had to be done. So, it’s my job to make sure that it gets done to where the people who are impacted by it have that sense of somewhat of a good quality of life. It gets crazy at times. It gets taxing because it’s hard,” said Mayor James Davis.
The bridge raising project will cost $1.3 billion and counting. The Port Authority says, to date, it’s spent more than $4 million in offering “temporary hotel stays, car washes, exterior home power washes, pool cleaning and pool water testing, debris cleanup, window replacement, reimbursement for the purchase of air conditioning and other services” to residents in Bayonne and Staten Island. And it’s encouraged residents to file claims for property damage, damage some homeowners say is premature to fix.
Is Davis growing impatient with this project at all?
“No, you can’t say growing impatient. I mean if you look at the project itself, it’s the first time in history that something like this has ever been undertaken,” he said.
The mayor sees the bridge raising as enduring the bad for the eventual good.