Tag: bayonne bridge

Can an Aerial Gondola to Bayonne Solve Staten Island Commuters’ Woes?

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bayonne-staten-island-gondolavia Jersey Digs – Transportation between Manhattan, New Jersey, and Staten Island are one of the highest frustrations for commuters and residents alike. However, the Staten Island Economic Development Corporation’s latest project development may have the solution. The corporation is headlining a radical new idea to ease commuting between Staten Island and Manhattan through Bayonne: an aerial gondola that drops people off at a light rail station.

The aerial gondola design came from Leitner-Poma of America (LPOA), with the goal of creating a design to better connect commuters to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail system in New Jersey. According to the SIEDC, the success of the aerial gondola could create a shorter commute for daily users between Staten Island and Manhattan – down to 33 minutes, in fact.

Initially, the SIEDC initiated a competition to find the best fit to carry out the design rendering and the proposed route for the best route to get commuters to and from Manhattan. The competition’s jury – comprised of architects, engineers, planners, and media – determined Elm Park to Bayonne would be the most efficient route from the three route submissions they received. “System length, total cost [of development], and travel time” were key factors in the final route decision for the jury, according to the SIEDC vice president of membership and outreach Alexandra Porto.

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Artist Fernando Fernandez Gives Back

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From left: Bayonne Recreation Director Pete Amadeo; Council President Sharon Nadrowski; artists Bill Zbylut, Gloria Fernandez, Fernando Fernandez and Anthony Sienkiewicz; Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis and his son, Josh. Photo courtesy of Patricia Mulligan.

Fernando Fernandez officially presented the mural, which highlights different aspects of the city’s history, to Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis last week.

The artwork, which Fernandez began creating six months ago with the help of artists Gloria Fernandez, Anthony Sienkiewicz and Bill Zbylut, now hangs on the back wall of the mayor’s office.

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Watch A Time-Lapse Video of the New Bayonne Bridge Roadway

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Via PANYNJ:

Two of the world’s most visually arresting pieces of construction equipment – looking more like colossal candy-colored robots than mundane cranes – are toiling away on either side of the Kill van Kull, building new roadways that will serve the elevated Bayonne Bridge.

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Known as segment-launching gantries, or gantry cranes, these mechanical giants haul and install the 70-ton concrete segments that make up the roadways. As big as they are – 500 feet long and 1 million pounds each – they work with finesse and precision, moving the roadway segments into just the right place for human workers to bind them with steel, epoxy and more concrete.

Custom-made for the Port Authority’s ambitious Bayonne Bridge “Raise the Roadway” project, the gantry cranes often operate at night when the bridge is closed to traffic. With their crayon-bold colors lit up in the dark, they seem to have arrived from another world – a Marvel Comics universe, perhaps, or a child’s oversized toy bin.

The project marks the first time engineers are building a bridge roadway above the original span, even as the lower road continues to carry traffic. It will maintain the steel arch that makes the Bayonne Bridge a civil engineering landmark, while giving drivers a safer, wider and more modern roadway with 12-foot lanes, new shoulders, a median divider, and a 12-foot bike and pedestrian walkway. See for yourself in the slideshow below and the time-lapse video of gantry cranes at work by the Port Authority’s Mike Dombrowki.

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Park Bayonne Grand Opens

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Jonathan Lin at NJ.com reports on the grand opening of Park Bayonne. 

cf21bba4358b162fAfter a months-long delay, city officials and developer Lance Lucarelli cut the ribbon this week on “Park Bayonne” — a seven-story, 60-unit luxury apartment building — and are calling it a step in the right direction for the city.

The building, located across the street from the Stephen R. Gregg/Hudson County Park at 1040 Kennedy Blvd., stands 75 feet tall and towers above the surrounding neighborhood of mostly two-story homes. The view from the top offers clear sights of the Manhattan skyline, Port Newark, the Bayonne Bridge and the Turnpike Extension Bridge.

Bayonne Mayor Jimmy Davis said Park Bayonne “represents the kind of investment that we want to see in Bayonne.”

“My goal is to ensure that this type of quality product is delivered to strategic areas throughout our community in the coming months and years,” Davis said in a statement.

Lucarelli of The L Group has previously said he hopes Park Bayonne — as well as other projects he has in mind for the city — will help address the economic decline he’s seen in the city over the years.

He reiterated that sentiment at Tuesday’s ribbon-cutting.

“The city’s going to be great. The whole city’s gonna change because of this,” Lucarelli said.

Studios start at $1,900, one-bedrooms at $2,225, two-bedrooms at $2,850 and three-bedrooms at $4,215, according to Park Bayonne’s website. About 20 of the building’s 60 units have been leased already, Lucarelli said.

The project, which has a five-year tax abatement from the city, includes a parking garage with 71 parking spaces, he said.

Community amenities at Park Bayonne include an indoor rooftop lounge, an outdoor rooftop patio with grilling stations, a fitness center, complimentary shuttles to the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail, and other features, the building’s website states.

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Did you know …..

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A bridge not too far leads to the hot dogs, history, and parkland of Hudson County’s Peninsula City, Bayonne. Here are some fun places to visit:

The Bridge: The Bayonne Bridge was designed by Swiss-born civil engineer Othmar Ammann, whose A-list credits include the George Washington, Throg’s Neck, Triborough, Bronx-Whitestone, and Verrazano-Narrows bridges. A great view of the 5,780-foot-long span can be had from Mayor Dennis P. Collin Park (First St and Kennedy Blvd).

Hail to the Chief: The city’s first fire company convened in 1870 at what is now the Chief John T. Brennan Fire Museum, named for the state’s longest-tenured fire chief. Visits by appointment only (10 W 47th St). Visit their FaceBook page too.

Hit the Books: Bayonne’s Public Library was built in 1903 with $50,000 from Scottish-American philanthropist Andrew Carnegie (697 Ave C, 201-858-6970).

Dog Heaven: Since it opened more than 80 years ago, Petridis Hot Dogs has been a required stop for every Bayonne native. You should try it, too (546 Broadway, 201-436-0974).

Fore! The spectacular (and private) Bayonne Golf Club can be glimpsed from the public walkway surrounding the course, which sits on 7.5 million cubic yards of material dredged from the Hudson River and nearby waterways.

Sports Central: The Big Apple Sports Palace has 30 televisions plus tasty, ultra-thin pizza. Check out signed jerseys from two Bayonne-bred stars: Danan Hughes (Kansas City Chiefs special teams captain from 1993 to 1998) and current Cleveland Indians’ reliever Joe Borowski (412–414 Broadway, 201-858-1075).

Wunderbar: The toughest Saturday night table to get is at Hendrickson’s—site, in 1869, of Bayonne’s first City Hall. The menu, originally German, is eclectic (671 Broadway, 201-437-4955).

In Memoriam: Drive through the old Military Ocean Terminal (currently being converted to commercial and residential use) to Harbor View Park and Russian artist Zurab Tsereteli’s 100-foot-high memorial to the victims of the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks (the Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor, 51 Port Terminal Blvd).

Bird Land: Visit Richard A. Rutkowski Park, a 42-acre nature preserve on Newark Bay. During World War II, a yellow crane (still standing) lowered patrol torpedo boats built in Bayonne (including JFK’s famed PT-109) into Newark Bay for test runs  (Stephen R. Gregg/Hudson County Park, 48th St and Kennedy Blvd).

First Span of Bayonne Bridge Roadway Completed

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The rolling gantry crane on top of the completed first span of the new roadway for the Bayonne Bridge. Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal
The rolling gantry crane on top of the completed first span of the new roadway for the Bayonne Bridge.
Reena Rose Sibayan | The Jersey Journal

The Bayonne Bridge, a historic civil engineering landmark designed by Othmar H. Ammann, is the fourth longest steel arch bridge in the world, and was the longest in the world at the time of its completion. It connects Bayonne, New Jersey, with Staten Island, New York, spanning the Kill Van Kull. Construction began in September 1928 and was completed in 1931. The primary purpose of the bridge was to allow vehicular traffic from Staten Island to reach Manhattan via the Holland Tunnel.

Today, because the bridge is only 151 feet above the water, larger container ships often cannot cross under it to reach our marine terminals – Port Newark, Elizabeth and Howland Hook in Staten Island. Shippers who rely on our ports for access to a regional transportation network are forced to use other smaller, less-efficient and less environmentally friendly ships to bring goods into our region.

The new conceptual design highlights safety and design improvements: wider lanes, shoulders, a median divider, and the potential for future transit options. We have completed final engineering design and project staging to confirm how the mainspan and approach will physically be raised while maintaining traffic and access in both directions. Click here to watch a video of our proposed design and construction staging.

The expansion of the Panama Canal is expected to result in a shift to larger, cleaner, more-efficient ships servicing our region and other East Coast markets. In order to ensure these new ships can reach our ports, the clearance limitation must be addressed.

To that end, in December 2010, the Port Authority announced its decision to take action to “Raise the Roadway” of the Bayonne Bridge to 215 feet. The 64 feet of additional air draft under the bridge will allow the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to welcome larger, more efficient vessels to our ports, which will in turn result in cleaner air in our region.