Drivin' the Driscoll

The world's widest bridge - 15 travel lanes plus six shoulder lanes - is now the Driscoll Bridge carrying the Garden State Parkway over the shipping channel of the Raritan River in Perth Amboy NJ, 42km (26mi) southwest of Central Park in Manhattan. The bridge is located at the transition point between the beach resorts and developing areas of the Jersey Shore and the established suburbs and industrial areas of northern New Jersey.

Wider than the GWB and Verrazano
Until Driscoll, the world's widest - as measured by number of lanes - was the George Washington Bridge operated by the PANYNJ with 14 lanes. The next widest in the US is the Tribrough Authority's Verrazano Narrows Bridge of 12 travel lanes, no shoulder lanes. Third is the Bay Bridge in San Francisco of ten lanes. All these are double decked (the east span of the Bay bridge is side by side) and all are toll financed. The new Wilson Bridge presently under construction to carry the Capital Beltway over the Potomac River near Alexandria VA will be 12 travel lanes plus eight shoulder lanes - financed with taxes, thanks to the special indulgence of the DC area by Uncle Sam.

Dimensions
The Garden State Parkway's $220m project widens the Driscoll Bridge from 12 to 15 lanes and adds six shoulder lanes. All lanes are 11 feet in width. 230k veh/day presently use the bridge but this is expected to surpass 300k in the future as the Jersey Shore continues to develop. Northbound has eight travel lanes, one more than southbound because of the major exits just north of the bridge to I-287 and the Turnpike proper. The eight lanes northbound are organized into two roadways (or carriageways) of four travel lanes each and shoulder lanes each side, occupying all of the existing bridge.

The eastern roadway northbound will serve four interchanges within 10km (6mi) while the other or central roadway northbound will serve traffic continuing on the Parkway beyond the interchanges. Southbound, where interchanges beyond the bridge are smaller and further off, there is a single seven lane roadway with shoulder lanes each side.

The new span has a deck 28.3m (93ft) wide and 1,335m (4379ft) long of 27 steel plate girder spans rising to provide a navigation channel clearance under of 41m (135ft). The navigation span is 76m (250ft) long.

The existing bridge was itself built in two stages - the first of 18.3m (60ft) opened with the Parkway in 1955 and was striped for 2x2 lanes plus shoulders. In 1957 traffic caused it to be restriped to 2x3 lanes of 3m (10ft) each, no shoulder at all. In 1972 a second similar span was built alongside to bring the bridge deck to 39.6m (130ft) and each side was restriped to 5 lanes with righthand shoulder on each. In the early 1980s the shoulders were eliminated and the bridge made 6 lanes each direction, no shoulder.

Driscoll - New Jersey's great builder
The Driscoll Bridge is named after Alfred E Driscoll (1902-1975), the remarkable Jersey governor who used tolling to finance construction of almost the full length of both the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike - 454km (282mi) of "superhighway" as they called it then - within two terms of office half a century ago (1947-54). Driscoll was an urban planner, and a Republican state senator before running for office championing the tollroads.