Sherrill to push four-lane Newark Bay Bridge replacement

Gov. Mikie Sherrill will push a plan to replace a bridge connecting Newark and Hudson County, she announced Tuesday, but it won’t be a larger project initially envisioned under former Gov. Phil Murphy. 

The Murphy administration had pushed a twin-span, eight-lane bridge to replace the Newark Bay Bridge, a four-lane, Turnpike extension bridge that federal officials say will likely require replacement by 2031. But opponents and local leaders, including Newark Mayor Ras Baraka and Jersey City Mayor James Solomon, said the eight-lane project was unnecessary and expensive, and instead asked the governor to build a single, four-lane bridge to maintain the same capacity. 

But Sherrill, who during last year’s campaign said the current bridge needs replacing but offered fewer details on her thoughts about the controversial Turnpike efforts to expand capacity in Hudson County. Sherrill announced that she will ask the New Jersey Turnpike Authority Board for a $6.7 billion, four-lane bridge, which she said will be the Turnpike Authority’s most expensive project ever.

“This historic investment in safety, resilience, and job creation will improve long-term reliability for drivers and freight,” Sherrill said. “This project will support approximately 19,000 jobs, including thousands of union construction jobs. It will generate economic activity across the region and create opportunities for small and minority-owned businesses in our state.”

The Newark Bay Bridge opened in 1956 and carries four lanes of I-78 into Bayonne.

Critics of the proposed eight-lane project said that such an effort would be bloated and lead to worse traffic and pollution in the region. Dozens of advocacy groups, for example, asked the Sherrill administration to look at a simple bridge replacement rather than an expansion project.

“[We] respectfully urge you to reexamine and change NJTA’s deeply unpopular and unaffordable $10.7 billion plan to expand the Newark Bay-Hudson County Extension,” the organizations wrote. “This plan conflicts with many of the core goals of your administration, especially affordability, governmental efficiency and improving public transit. New Jersey drivers and residents, who have already been subject to relentless toll increases, should not be paying even more for this bloated project.”

Sherrill said she will also ask the Turnpike Authority to explore safety developments on roads leading to the Holland Tunnel.