The summer travel season is right around the corner — and that means a lot of us will be heading across the Bay Bridge to the Eastern shore and to the beaches in Delaware and Maryland. But following the collapse of the Key Bridge in Baltimore, how comfortable are you about the safety of the Bay Bridge?
Just the sight of the Bay Bridge across the Chesapeake is enough to make some drivers grip the wheel a littler tighter. A lot of people have a hard time driving across the four-mile long bridge. Nonetheless, before the collapse of the Key Bridge, most of us wouldn’t have flinched at the sight of a massive ship going right under a bridge.
But in the early morning of March 26, the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore was struck by a cargo ship and collapsed into the water below, killing six workers. In an instant, everything changed, and now safety is top of mind.
News4 has confirmed that Maryland transportation leaders will be taking a look at better safety protections for the Bay Bridge.
“We’re working on looking at that, in terms of the safety and the protection of the piers,” Maryland Assistant Transportation Secretary Joe McAndrew said.
The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said if it finds any urgent safety recommendations that need to be made following the Key Bridge collapse, it will do so immediately. If and when the NTSB makes those recommendations, McAndrew says state officials will be listening closely.
“At the end of the day, it is safe for folks to continue to travel across it. We are going to be working with our partners at the federal level that are doing an investigation of what happened at the Key Bridge,” McAndrew said. “But it is safe and we would encourage people to go and enjoy the Eastern Shore as much as possible.”
There has been a lot of talk about so-called “dolphins,” protective barriers that could redirect a ship from hitting the support piers of a bridge. In other parts of the country, those protections are becoming much more common, especially with newer bridges. In contrast, the Bay Bridge is now more than 70 years old. It has fenders to protect piers, but no dolphins.
At Sandy Point State Park next to the Bay Bridge, Luis Otero and Savanna Wheelis are reminded of the Key Bridge collapse.
“I’m terrified of bridges, so honestly, it makes me not want to go under or on bridges anymore,” Wheelis said.
Otero chimed in, “Especially now that we’ve see the [Key] bridge fall — it’s like, would it happen to this one?”
A fisherman named Zeno said he hopes the state keeps this bridge in good shape.
“I would say definitely more maintenance — yeah, for sure, maintenance. Keeping up with that,” he said.
