Driscoll Bridge

Driscoll Bridge
The Driscoll Bridge (left) and the Edison Bridge (right).
Carries	G.S. Parkway
Crosses	Raritan River
Maintained by	New Jersey Turnpike Authority
Characteristics
Design	Box girder bridge
History
Architect	Robinson & Steinman
Opened	July 30, 1954
Statistics
Toll	$1.50 (Southbound only)

The Driscoll Bridge is a toll bridge (a series of three spans) on the Garden State Parkway in the U.S. state of New Jersey spanning the Raritan River near its mouth in Raritan Bay. The bridge connects the Middlesex County communities of Woodbridge Township on the north with Sayreville on the south. With a total of 15 travel lanes and 6 shoulder lanes, it is the widest motor vehicle bridge in the world by number of lanes and one of the world's busiest.

The northbound lanes of the bridge were opened to the public without fanfare on July 30, 1954. The bridge was formally renamed in 1974 for former Governor Alfred E. Driscoll, who advocated for and oversaw the construction of the Garden State Parkway, as well as for the New Jersey Turnpike.

The original span was built with two lanes in each direction. A second span was added in 1972, with each span serving five lanes of traffic.

The bridge had very narrow lanes which created traffic bottlenecks for miles in each direction on the Garden State Parkway, until it was widened. The original configuration was four twelve-foot lanes with shoulders. This was then widened to eight twelve-foot lanes with shoulders. The shoulders on each side were then converted to travel lanes, resulting in a total of ten twelve-foot lanes. Finally, the bridge was restriped to have twelve ten-foot lanes, six in each direction. The speed limit on the Garden State Parkway is 45 mph between Milepost 126.7 and 127.7, approaching and traversing the Driscoll Bridge.

Once the new southbound span was fully opened, and the old span reconstructed, the new span featured seven southbound lanes and the original span had eight northbound lanes, separated between through traffic and traffic exiting at Exit 127. The new southbound bridge opened to traffic on May 3, 2006, bringing to an end this part of the construction project, which started on September 25, 2002.

On May 20, 2009, the Driscoll Bridge project was completed. The new configuration has seven southbound lanes on the newly constructed span, and the original span has eight northbound lanes, carries northbound traffic only. The northbound span is also divided, with four lanes on each side. The left side of the northbound span contains four express route lanes going through traffic for Parkway North over the bridge, and the right side of the northbound span contains three right lanes going into Exit 127 of the Parkway and one express route lane going through traffic for Parkway North over the bridge. The Driscoll Bridge is now the world's widest bridge, in terms of total number of travel lanes (15 total).