New Jersey shrinks plans for Newark Bay Bridge replacement

Donna Alberico

New Jersey Gov. Mikie Sherrill decided to downsize the planned Newark Bay Bridge replacement, scrapping the plan to add more lanes. 

With a $6.7 billion price tag, the replacement of the bridge will still be the most expensive project the New Jersey Turnpike Authority has ever undertaken, according to Sherrill. 

Without the change the governor announced on Tuesday, construction would have cost $10.7 billion, roughly half of the Turnpike Authority's 20-year capital plan budget. 

The four-lane bridge, which runs from Bayonne to Jersey City, should be replaced by 2031, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. It connects the New Jersey Turnpike to the Holland Tunnel. 

The original plan, put forth six years ago, was to build a four-lane bridge alongside the existing one, then demolish the old bridge and build a second four-lane bridge in its place. 

This is not the first time the project was downsized. The Turnpike Authority initially planned to add two lanes to the turnpike extension in Hudson County. Sherrill's predecessor, Gov. Phil Murphy, abandoned that part of the plan in December. 

The Turnpike Authority Board approved the first two contracts for the bridge replacement on Wednesday. At the meeting, NJTA Executive Director Kris Kolluri said downsizing the project was motivated by the Turnpike Authority's finances. 

" What we are literally doing is advancing the first bridge because that's what we have the money for," Kolluri said, according to Gothamist. "It's the right thing to do for safety reasons, right thing for financial reasons and the right thing for mobility reasons." 

Kolluri called the authority's capital plan "extraordinarily aspirational" at the Bond Buyer's National Outlook conference in January, highlighting Newark Bay as a stressor. 

"Just for one project, it's $200 million. When you get to the next four or five, you're talking about billions of dollars of contributions. I can't support that internally," Kolluri said. "The infamous Newark Bay extension project is now $10 billion. That's half the entire capital program."

At the meeting, the NJTA also authorized the issuance of $1 billion of turnpike revenue bonds and $3 billion of refunding bonds for 2026. 

The Turnpike Authority is rated A1 by Moody's Ratings, A-plus by Fitch Ratings, and AA-minus by S&P Global Ratings. It has $25.8 billion of bonds outstanding.

Local leaders, including the mayors of Jersey City and Hoboken, had opposed the expansion, arguing the city should instead invest in mass transit. They celebrated Sherrill's decision. 

"Today's decision acknowledges that the previous proposal would've opened the floodgates of heavy traffic through communities that already bear a high burden of traffic and air pollution," Jersey City Mayor James Solomon and Hoboken Mayor Ras Baraka said in a joint statement. "For years, our communities fought against a seriously ill-conceived plan while proposing serious alternatives. It took Gov. Sherrill's leadership to listen and act in the best interest of the people of New Jersey."