Pulaski Skyway - Design and Construction

Design and Construction

Except for the crossings of the Hackensack and Passaic rivers, the main part of the skyway is a steel deck truss cantilever bridge, supported by concrete piers. Each of the two river crossings is a 1,250-foot (380 m) combination of a 550-foot (170 m) subdivided (K-shaped) through Pratt truss between the supports and a 350-foot (110 m) basic Pratt truss structure connecting each end to the deck truss part of the skyway. Spanning the rivers, they reach a height of 135 feet (41 m). The Jersey City end includes three short through truss spans that take the roadway over rail lines. The westernmost passes over the Port Authority Trans-Hudson rapid transit line and Conrail's Passaic and Harsimus Line. Just beyond are the two easternmost deck truss spans, after which the skyway is low enough to use simple vertical supports. After crossing over Tonnele Circle, the highway passes under Kennedy Boulevard and enters the cut excavated through Bergen Hill that accommodates Route 139.

Design for the Holland Tunnel, the first fixed roadway connection between New Jersey and New York City, began in 1919; construction began in 1922, and the tunnel opened in late 1927. In order to provide for a continuous highway connection on the New Jersey side the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill authorizing the extension of Route 1 from its end at Elizabeth through Newark and Jersey City to the proposed tunnel. It was conceived as the nations's first "super-highway". State highway engineer Hugh L. Sloan appointed old acquaintance Fred Lavis, a consulting engineer who had worked on foreign rail lines and the Panama Canal and written four books on locating and designing rail lines, to design this Route 1 Extension. The Skyway portion was designed by Sigvald Johannesson.

Frank Hague, mayor of Jersey City and boss of the state's political machine, directed the state to avoid the open cuts that were already common where the railroads crossed Bergen Hill, and to include an access ramp in Kearny to spur industrial development. Construction of the highway, which was mostly raised on embankments, and passed through Bergen Hill in a cut began in mid-1925, and large portions in Jersey City and Newark—including the "covered roadway" (Route 139) and the embankment in eastern Newark—were opened in late 1928, about a year after the tunnel opened. Traffic was still required to cross the Hackensack and Passaic Rivers on the old Lincoln Highway, which included two drawbridges that frequently stopped traffic to allow ships to pass.

Lavis's design for this section across the New Jersey Meadowlands, which would be raised on concrete piers, included two drawbridges 35 feet (11 m) above the water surface, sufficient for the majority of ships to pass underneath. He resigned in 1928, believing his work was complete, but in January 1929 the War Department objected to the continued existence of the Lincoln Highway bridges once the new highway was complete. Since the Route 1 Extension was not intended for local traffic, and replacing the drawbridges with tunnels would be expensive, a compromise was worked out by late 1929 to raise the bridges to 135 feet (41 m). The concrete jacketing of the steel was removed from the plans, since the taller bridges would be heavier; this resulted in more future maintenance.

Four companies—the American Bridge Company, McClintic-Marshall Company, Phoenix Bridge Company, and Taylor-Fichter Steel Construction Company—were awarded contracts for the so-called "Diagonal Highway", with construction to start in April 1930. The two river bridges, McClintic-Marshall's portion, were completed first, and the $21 million road was opened at 8:00 a.m. on November 24, 1932, Thanksgiving Day, after an official ceremony the previous day on the Kearny ramp. Owing to the Great Depression and problems with funding, Governor A. Harry Moore directed the Highway Commission on October 25, 1932 to make a formal request to the U.S. Bureau of Public Roads to charge tolls on the Diagonal Highway. It was thought that tolls would be illegal due to federal aid being used to build the road, but it might be possible to transfer the $600,000 of federal aid to another project. A bill was introduced into the state legislature on May 1, 1933 asking to add tolls to the road (then known as the "sky way"), at a rate of 10 cents for cars and 20 cents for trucks. The legal obstacle of federal aid was also resolved by getting approval to transfer the funds.

During planning and construction, and for about half a year after opening, the road had no official name, being known as the Diagonal Highway, Newark – Jersey City Viaduct, or High-Level Viaduct. On May 3, 1933, the New Jersey Legislature passed a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Eugene W. Hejke of Jersey City naming the road after Kazimierz Pułaski, the Polish military leader who helped train and lead Continental Army troops in the American Revolutionary War. An official ceremony was held on October 11, 1933, including the unveiling of signs with the new designation.

A survey taken during 1933 proved that the road saved time. Not only was the distance shortened by 0.5 miles (0.80 km), but it took about six minutes less to travel the new route. Trucks gained even more time, saving anywhere from five to eleven minutes. It was found that the highway also diverted a good deal of traffic from other routes.