Friday, July 7, 2017

Hello? Bayonne Bridge?

Roads & Bridges: " After the Sarah Mildred Long Bridge visit, I had my sights set on the Bayonne Bridge project. Crews have installed a new road deck 64 ft above the original deck, which was built back in 1931, and traffic has been moving on the new part since February, but there is still a lot of work to be done on the travel lanes. There will be two 12-ft-wide lanes in each direction, the inner and outer shoulders, and a shared-use path for cyclists and pedestrians. The job is supposed to be completed in 2019, and I thought it would be a great idea to use the 360° camera to drive over the bridge and then capture flat and full-circle images on the other parts still under construction. I have reached out to the owner, the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, several times via phone and email. My messages have not been returned. I relaunched my search after several weeks of dead ends and reached out to a second person with the Port Authority. The person told me not to worry, that someone would reach out to me soon. Finally, words were exchanged and a human connection was established. However, this person quickly fell into the mysterious abyss that appears to be lashing its tongue around anyone I try and contact at the public affairs office and pulling them down into a depth of nothingness."