The Commodore Barry Bridge (also known as the Commodore John Barry Bridge or John Barry Bridge) is a

cantilever bridge A cantilever bridge is a bridge built using structures that project horizontally into space, supported on only one end (called cantilevers). For small footbridges, the cantilevers may be simple beams; however, large cantilever bridges designed ...

that spans the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for along the borders of New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware, before em ...

from

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; (Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, Mary ...

Bridgeport Bridgeport is the most populous city and a major port in the U.S. state of Connecticut. With a population of 148,654 in 2020, it is also the fifth-most populous in New England. Located in eastern Fairfield County at the mouth of the Pequonn ...

, in Logan Township,

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delaware ...

. It is named after the

American Revolutionary War The American Revolutionary War (April 19, 1775 – September 3, 1783), also known as the Revolutionary War or American War of Independence, was a major war of the American Revolution. Widely considered as the war that secured the independence of t ...

hero and

Philadelphia Philadelphia, often called Philly, is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the sixth-largest city in the U.S., the second-largest city in both the Northeast megalopolis and Mid-Atlantic regions after New York City. Since ...

resident John Barry. Along with the

Betsy Ross Bridge The Betsy Ross Bridge, also known as the Ross Memorial Bridge, is a continuous steel truss bridge spanning the Delaware River from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Pennsauken, New Jersey. It was built from 1969 to 1974, and opened in April 1976, ...

, the

Benjamin Franklin Bridge The Benjamin Franklin Bridge, originally named the Delaware River Bridge and known locally as the Ben Franklin Bridge, is a suspension bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Owned and ope ...

and the

Walt Whitman Bridge The Walt Whitman Bridge is a single-level suspension bridge spanning the Delaware River from Philadelphia in the west to Gloucester City in Camden County, New Jersey in the east. The bridge is named after the poet Walt Whitman, who resided in ...

, the Commodore Barry Bridge is one of the four

toll bridge A toll bridge is a bridge where a monetary charge (or ''toll'') is required to pass over. Generally the private or public owner, builder and maintainer of the bridge uses the toll to recoup their investment, in much the same way as a toll road ...

s connecting the metropolitan Philadelphia region with southern New Jersey owned by the

Delaware River Port Authority The Delaware River Port Authority (DRPA), officially the Delaware River Port Authority of Pennsylvania and New Jersey, is a bi-state agency instrumentality created by a congressionally approved interstate compact between the governments of Penn ...

(DRPA). Originally designed to connect with a now-cancelled freeway, the limited-access bridge has recently been retrofitted to better serve the local area. Between 2007 and 2011, both the DRPA and the

PennDOT The Pennsylvania Department of Transportation (PennDOT) oversees transportation issues in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. The administrator of PennDOT is the Pennsylvania Secretary of Transportation, currently Yassmin Gramian. Presently, P ...

, in conjunction with the

Redevelopment Authority, built a pair of entrance-exit ramps that allowed motorists, primarily heavy truck traffic, to access the Chester Waterfront, via Pennsylvania Route 291 and Flower Street (via West 9th Street ( U.S. Route 13)) from

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canad ...

. Other improvements, such as deck joint replacement, concrete patching (on the approaches), and other safety and engineering improvements are either ongoing or have been completed. The bridge replaced the Chester–Bridgeport Ferry, a ferry service that from July 1, 1930 to February 1, 1974, was the sole means of crossing the Delaware River from

Delaware County, Pennsylvania Delaware County, colloquially referred to as Delco, is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. With a population of 576,830 as of the 2020 census, it is the fifth-most populous county in Pennsylvania and the third=smallest in area. De ...

Gloucester County, New Jersey Gloucester County () is a county located in the U.S. state of New Jersey. As of the 2020 U.S. census, the county's population was 302,294. Gloucester County is located approximately southeast of Philadelphia and northwest of Atlantic City. ...

. The Chester side of the ferry service experienced the

Wade Dump Wade Dump was a rubber recycling facility and illegal industrial waste storage and disposal facility in Chester, Pennsylvania. It was located at 1 Flower Street on the western bank of the Delaware River just north of the Commodore Barry Bridge. ...

fire and SuperFund cleanup, and has since become the city-owned Barry Bridge Park with the adjacent

Subaru Park Subaru Park (formerly known as PPL Park and Talen Energy Stadium) is a soccer-specific stadium located in Chester, Pennsylvania, located next to the Commodore Barry Bridge on the waterfront along the Delaware River. The venue is home to the Phila ...

(home of the

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

Philadelphia Union The Philadelphia Union are an American professional soccer club based in Chester, Pennsylvania. The Union compete in Major League Soccer (MLS) as a member of the Eastern Conference. Founded on February 28, 2008, the club began playing in 2010 a ...

franchise) being opened in 2010.

History

Construction of the bridge began on April 14, 1969, and it opened to traffic on February 1, 1974. It has a total length of 13,912 feet (4,240 m), and a main span of 1,644 feet (501 m), making the bridge the fourth longest cantilever bridge in the world, and the longest in the United States. The road has a total of five lanes, divided by a zipper barrier, which was added to the bridge in 2002, in which a machine can configure the number of lanes in each direction, depending upon traffic volume or construction. The bridge is designated as part of

U.S. Route 322 U.S. Route 322 (US 322) is a long, east–west United States Highway, traversing Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. The road is a spur of U.S. Route 22 and one of the original highways from 1926. A portion of it at one time was concurrent with ...

and has direct connections with

PA Route 291 Pennsylvania Route 291 (PA 291) is an east–west route in Pennsylvania that runs from U.S. Route 13 (US 13) and US 13 Business (US 13 Bus.) in Trainer, Delaware County, east to Interstate 76 (I-76) in South Philadelphia near the Walt Whi ...

(W. 2nd Street),

U.S. Route 13 U.S. Route 13 (US 13) is a north–south U.S. highway established in 1926 that runs for from Interstate 95 (I-95) just north of Fayetteville, North Carolina to US 1 in the northeastern suburbs of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in Morrisville. ...

(W. 9th Street) and

Interstate 95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canad ...

in Chester and

U.S. Route 130 U.S. Route 130 (US 130) is a U.S. Highway that is a spur route of U.S. Route 30, located completely within the state of New Jersey. It is signed with north and south cardinal directions, following a general northeast–southwest diagonal path, ...

in Bridgeport, with a connection to Interstate 295 and the

New Jersey Turnpike The New Jersey Turnpike (NJTP) is a system of controlled-access highways in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The turnpike is maintained by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority (NJTA).The Garden State Parkway, although maintained by NJTA, is not consi ...

within a radius of the bridge. Originally created to be a connection to one of the then-proposed

freeway A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...

s in New Jersey, the Commodore Barry Bridge was to connect

near Chester to, at one point, the

Atlantic City Expressway The Atlantic City Expressway, officially numbered, but unsigned, as Route 446 and abbreviated A.C. Expressway, ACE, or ACX, and known locally as the Expressway, is a long toll road in the U.S. state of New Jersey, managed and operated by ...

near Hammonton, but those plans were eventually scrapped when it was realized that many people in the

college town A college town or university town is a community (often a separate town or city, but in some cases a town/city neighborhood or a district) that is dominated by its university population. The university may be large, or there may be several sma ...

of Glassboro would be affected. There are new talks of possibly upgrading US 322 to a freeway from US 130 to Interstate 295's current Exit 11, or even as far as the

's Exit 2. There is no mention if this new freeway would be included in the

Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. Th ...

, though it hasn't been ruled out yet, either. In 1978, an intense fire broke out at

, a rubber recycling facility and illegal industrial chemical dumping site almost directly under the bridge. The heat, rising flames and noxious fumes shut down the bridge temporarily. The burning chemicals injured 43 firemen and caused long-term health problems for the first responders to the fire. In 1981, the location was declared a

Superfund Superfund is a United States federal environmental remediation program established by the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). The program is administered by the United States Environmental Pro ...

cleanup site and remediation occurred throughout the 1980s. In 1989, the site was deemed safe and removed from the Superfund national priorities list. In 2004 the site was converted to a parking lot for the nearby Barry Bridge Park.

Tolls

A $5.00 one-way toll is charged entering Pennsylvania for passenger vehicles (less than gross vehicle weight). A $12 credit will be given on a per tag basis for any DRPA-issued

E-ZPass E-ZPass is an electronic toll collection system used on toll roads, toll bridges, and toll tunnels in the Eastern United States, Midwestern United States, and Southern United States. The E-ZPass Interagency Group (IAG) consists of member agenci ...

tag that crosses one of the four DRPA bridges 18 times in a calendar month. Trucks, Commercial vehicles, mobile homes and recreation vehicles (weighing at least . gross vehicle weight), pay $7.50 cash per axle. Seniors aged 65 and over with an NJ E-ZPass can use a discount program to pay $2.50 per trip.

References

External links

Delaware River Port Authority - Commodore Barry BridgeCommodore Barry Bridge: Historic Overview
* {{Delaware River Port Authority Delaware River Port Authority Toll bridges in New Jersey Toll bridges in Pennsylvania Bridges completed in 1974 Bridges over the Delaware River U.S. Route 322 Road bridges in New Jersey Road bridges in Pennsylvania Chester, Pennsylvania Logan Township, New Jersey 1974 establishments in Pennsylvania Bridges of the United States Numbered Highway System Steel bridges in the United States Cantilever bridges in the United States Bridges in Delaware County, Pennsylvania Transportation buildings and structures in Gloucester County, New Jersey Interstate vehicle bridges in the United States

History

Tolls

See also

References

External links