Following the Francis Scott Key Bridge disaster the Chesapeake Bay Bridge is getting new collision-blunting structures around its main support piers. In our weekly series with the Bay Journal Delmarva Public Media's Don Rush talks with reporter Jeremy Cox about the new protection.
RUSH: In the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge accident, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge will be getting an upgrade. This is Don Rush. The Maryland Transportation Authority Project will cost $177 million. Construction will be aimed at installing collision blunting structures around the bridge's main support piers against such accidents. In our weekly series with Bay Journal, we talked with reporter Jeremy Cox about the additional protection.
COX: The Maryland Transportation Authority is looking for contractors to construct sixten "dolphins" to provide extra protection along the support piers for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and construction could start as soon as spring of 2027.
RUSH: And how are they supposed to work?
COX: There are protections around the bridge currently, but they go back many years. They do meet federal guidelines, but the latest versions are not in place right now. So that's what that would do, would give a little bit more protection because container ships getting bigger and as we saw with the key bridge disaster in 2024, there's enormous consequences if there's not quite enough protection in place.
RUSH: So how much of this is spurred by the Key Bridge disaster?
COX: Yeah, it's hard to imagine this project going forward if that hadn't happened. So to remind listeners, that was when a container ship crashed into the span, which is part of the I-695 beltway around Baltimore, causing the whole thing to crash into the Patapsco River, killing six construction workers. And so this proposal comes out a couple of years later and it certainly linked to that disaster again in reaction to the larger generation of ships coming up and down the bay.
RUSH: Will this interfere at all with traffic?
COX: I haven't heard anything like that. No. The traffic shouldn't be impacted by this, although I'm sure there may be some minor delays. Probably time for the offseason and overnight, but this will occur at the water level and probably going to be impacted more by the eastbound re-decking that's going on right now than you will be by this.
RUSH: Describe these spans for us. I mean, they've been there a fairly long period of time and they have had some upgrades before.
COX: The bridge itself is two different spans. One dating back to the 1950s, one to the 1970s. And they do have, and I want to make sure this is known, they do have some amount of protection around them, but the industry guidelines call for, if not federal guidelines, greater amounts of protection around the bottom of bridges like this. So aging infrastructure, we talked about this with the sewage spill last week. That's sort of a common theme here. And so this is the Bay Bridge's version of coming into the 21st Century.
RUSH: Bay Journal reporter Jeremy Cox on the upgrade for the Chesapeake Bay Bridge for collision-blunting structures around the main peer supports. The improvement follows the recent disaster that shut down the Francis Scott Key Bridge after a vessel struck one of its bridge supports. Construction is expected to begin in the spring of next year. This is Don Rush for Delmarva Public Media .
