The Benjamin Franklin Bridge, originally named the Delaware River Bridge and known locally as the Ben Franklin Bridge, is a suspension bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Owned and operated by the Delaware River Port Authority, it is one of four primary vehicular bridges between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, along with the Betsy Ross, Walt Whitman, and Tacony-Palmyra bridges. It carries Interstate 676/U.S. Route 30, pedestrians/cyclists, and the PATCO Speedline.
The bridge was dedicated as part of the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the United States Declaration of Independence. From 1926 to 1929, it had the longest single span of any suspension bridge in the world.
History
Plans for a bridge to augment the ferries across the Delaware River began as early as 1818, when one plan envisioned using Smith Island, a narrow island off the Philadelphia shore that was removed in 1893. Local engineer John C. Trautwine proposed a four-span suspension bridge in 1851. Then, in 1868, a committee of Philadelphia and Camden interests proposed a unique design with two parallel low-level drawbridge spans which would allow ships to pass in stages without interrupting traffic across the bridge. A later proposal by John Alexander Low Waddell employed helical approaches to avoid purchasing expensive land for approaches to a high-level suspension bridge. None of these proposals were constructed. To find a permanent solution, the Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission (now the Delaware River Port Authority) was created in 1919.
The chief engineer of the bridge was Polish-born Ralph Modjeski, the design engineer was Leon Moisseiff, the supervising architect was Paul Philippe Cret, and the construction engineer was Montgomery B. Case. Work began on January 6, 1922. At the peak of construction, 1,300 people worked on the bridge, and 15 died during its construction. The bridge was originally painted by a commercial painting company owned by David A. Salkind, of Philadelphia, which also painted the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge opened to traffic on July 1, 1926, three days ahead of its scheduled opening on the nation's 150th anniversary. At completion, its 1,750-foot (533-meter) span was the world's longest for a suspension bridge, a distinction it held until the opening of the Ambassador Bridge in 1929.
The name was changed to "Benjamin Franklin Bridge" in 1955, as a second Delaware River suspension bridge connecting Philadelphia and New Jersey was under construction (Walt Whitman Bridge).
The bridge was closed to vehicles on July 1, 2001, to allow pedestrians to celebrate its 75th anniversary.
Uses
Rail
The bridge originally included six vehicle lanes and two streetcar tracks on the main deck, with provision for a rapid transit track in each direction outboard of the deck's stiffening trusses, which rise above the deck rather than lie beneath it. The tracks were built to the nonstandard broad gauge of the Public Service Corporation of New Jersey's Camden streetcar system; the design called for the streetcars to cross the bridge from Camden to Philadelphia, enter an underground terminal beneath the bridge's west entrance plaza, and return to Camden via the opposite track. Streetcar stations were also built in the bridge's anchorages. None of the streetcar facilities were ever placed in service, as Public Service ran no cars across the bridge from its opening until the company abandoned its Camden streetcar system in 1932; after that, the tracks were removed, and the space was converted to vehicular lanes.
The outer pair of rapid transit tracks went into service in 1936 with the opening of the Bridge Line subway connecting Broadway and City Hall in Camden with 8th and Market Streets in Philadelphia. The Bridge Line, extended to 16th and Locust in 1952, began carrying PATCO trains in 1969. Today, it carries the PATCO Speedline, which descends into tunnels on both sides of the bridge. Both, the Eastbound and Westbound railroad tracks and support structure were reconstructed from June 2014 and finished October 2014.