Why Key Bridge replacement must stand taller | STAFF COMMENTARY
Top of the wish list for a new span across the Patapsco River must be greater clearance for the Port of Baltimore's cargo and cruise ships.
The departure of the Dali, the enormous 984-foot-long container ship that slammed into a critical support column of the Francis Scott Key Bridge causing it to collapse, marked a pivotal coming and going for Baltimore’s waterfront. Gone as of last Monday was the errant vessel that generated so much misery and destruction on March 26, including the deaths of six road workers, the collapsed span choking off marine traffic on the Patapsco and leaving thousands of port-related workers temporarily without a livelihood. Monday also marked an arrival. That was the day proposals for a rebuilt bridge were due to the Maryland Transportation Authority. Like ships passing in the night, the key players in the future and immediate past of the Interstate 695 span were briefly in proximity before moving their separate ways.
No doubt many factors will be weighed as plans submitted by the various firms looking to design, engineer and build the Key Bridge replacement are reviewed. Cost is surely a big one, as experts have estimated the total bill for the new span at $1.7 billion or more. Although the federal government is expected to pay the bulk of that, one probably shouldn’t count one’s infrastructure before it’s hatched. And while concerns over vehicle capacity, aesthetics, or even the new bridge’s name, given Key’s links to the enslaved, are reasonable, one consideration deserves to rise above others.
The Key Bridge replacement needs to stand tall.
More precisely, the bridge needs to provide adequate clearance to vessels like the Dali, which was carrying 4,700 40-feet-long, 8-feet wide and 8 1/2-feet-tall metal shipping containers (and is designed to hold more than twice as many). And the Dali is hardly an outlier. Since the 1950s, the global shipping industry has been locked in a race to build bigger and bigger. There’s no mystery to it. The larger the vessel, the more cost-efficient the shipping. It’s been a classic economy of scale — as long as ports were able to handle the big ships. And it’s not just cargo. Royal Caribbean’s Icon of the Seas, the nearly 1,200-feet-long, biggest-in-the-world cruise ship that entered service in January, is capable of carrying nearly 10,000 passengers and crew. But one thing it was not capable of doing was sailing into Baltimore. The Icon requires much more vertical clearance than the Key Bridge provided at its highest point.
Maryland could, of course, simply keep the big ships out. One could argue that smaller is safer — or at least the destructive power of a runaway vessel would be less (although still substantial). Yet federal investigators suggest that what caused the collision on the Patapsco River was not size but an electrical short that cost the ship the ability to navigate at a critical moment. Meanwhile, Baltimore would stand to lose quite a bit if it starts imposing more severe height or size restrictions. The Port of Baltimore accounts for more than 20,000 direct jobs (and nearly 350,000 jobs indirectly through shipping-dependent employers such as coal mines, manufacturers, auto dealers and more). And that adds up to more than $5.3 billion in wages and salaries for Maryland residents, according to a 2023 economic analysis prepared for the Maryland Port Administration.
You think other East Coast ports aren’t salivating at the opportunity to acquire some of the customers that now ship through Seagirt, Locust Point, Curtis Bay and the like? Around the world, ports aren’t just digging deeper and broader channels to accommodate these behemoth ships, they are literally raising bridges. New York’s Bayonne Bridge was recently raised to provide more clearance. In Georgia, authorities last year gave approval to raise by 20 feet the Eugene Talmadge Memorial Bridge in Savannah which was good news for the local port. The Key Bridge may well have been a candidate for similar treatment long before that fateful night.
While there’s much that Marylanders may disagree about, the one thing they should endorse universally is the need to foster and create good-paying jobs. The Port of Baltimore provides them. The average annual salary generated by cargo and cruising in this city is $82,426 annually. A failure to support such an asset would represent the height of short-sightedness.
Baltimore Sun editorial writers offer opinions and analysis on news and issues relevant to readers. They operate separately from the newsroom.