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Benjamin Franklin Bridge

Benjamin Franklin Bridge
2012 Ben Franklin Bridge and Race Street Pier.jpg
The bridge in 2012, before the PATCO track was replaced. Race Street Pier is in the foreground.
Coordinates 39°57′11″N 75°08′02″W / 39.953°N 75.134°W / 39.953; -75.134Coordinates: 39°57′11″N 75°08′02″W / 39.953°N 75.134°W / 39.953; -75.134
Carries 7 lanes of I‑676 / US 30, 2 PATCO railroad tracks, and 2 sidewalks
Crosses Delaware River
Locale (Center City), Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Camden, New Jersey
Official name Benjamin Franklin Bridge
Other name(s) Ben Franklin Bridge
Maintained by Delaware River Port Authority of Pennsylvania and New Jersey
ID number 4500010
Characteristics
Design steel suspension bridge
Total length 2,917.86 meters (9,573 feet)
Width 39.01 meters (128 feet)
Longest span 533.4 meters (1,750 feet)
Clearance above 5.12 meters (16.8 feet)
Clearance below 41.19 meters (135 feet)
History
Construction cost $37,103,765
Opened July 1, 1926
Statistics
Daily traffic 100,000
Toll Cars $5.00; Trucks over 7,000 lbs $7.50/axle; Buses $3.75/axle (westbound into PA) (E-ZPass)

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge – originally named the Delaware River Bridge, and now informally called the Ben Franklin Bridge – is a suspension bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Owned and operated by the Delaware River Port Authority, it is one of four primary vehicular bridges between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, along with the Betsy Ross, Walt Whitman, and Tacony-Palmyra bridges. It carries Interstate 676/U.S. Route 30.

The bridge was dedicated as part of the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From 1926 to 1929, it had the longest single span of any suspension bridge in the world.

Plans for a bridge to augment the ferries across the Delaware River began as early as 1818, when one plan envisioned using Smith/Windmill Island, a narrow island off the Philadelphia shore. But it was only in the 1910s that visions began to approach reality. The Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission (now the Delaware River Port Authority) was created in 1919.

The chief engineer of the bridge was Polish-born Ralph Modjeski, the design engineer was Leon Moisseiff, and the supervising architect was Paul Philippe Cret. Work began on January 6, 1922. At the peak of construction, 1,300 people worked on the bridge, and 15 died during its construction. The bridge was originally painted by a commercial painting company owned by David A. Salkind, of Philadelphia, which also painted the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge opened to traffic on July 1, 1926, three days ahead of its scheduled opening on the nation’s 150th anniversary. At completion, its 1,750-foot (533-meter) span was the world's longest for a suspension bridge, a distinction it held until the opening of the Ambassador Bridge in 1929.


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