BALTIMORE — Maryland’s Francis Scott Key Bridge and Bay Bridge are among the nation’s top 10 bridges with the most ships passing through, according to a study conducted by Johns Hopkins University researchers.
The research, which aimed to find which bridges are at risk of a catastrophic collapse, was sparked by the March 26 collapse of Baltimore’s Key Bridge.
Michael Shields, Associate Professor of Civil and Systems Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, the lead investigator for the study, said these initial findings are the first phase of the study.
Researchers have been looking at over six years worth of U.S. Coast Guard data, examining ship traffic under major bridges across the country.
“To our knowledge, no one has ever actually poured over that data to ask what is the traffic under all of these bridges,” Shields said. “That is the first piece of going into any risk assessment.”
The findings found the Verrazzano-Narrows Bridge in New York City, the Talmadge Memorial Bridge in Georgia and the Golden Gate Bridge and San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge in California have the most traffic from the largest ships.