Collapse will force commuters, commercial trucks to reroute
Thousands of commuters and commercial trucks will need to find new routes and schedule more time on the road after Tuesday’s collapse of Baltimore’s Francis Scott Key Bridge.
As drivers search for new routes, the disaster is sure to increase congestion around Baltimore’s two harbor tunnels and westbound Interstate 695, transportation experts say.
The bridge carried more than 12.4 million commercial and passenger vehicles in 2023 — nearly 34,000 trips a day — according to a Maryland Transportation Authority report issued last fall. The four-lane bridge was the outermost of three toll crossings of the Baltimore harbor and Patapsco River. The other two are the Harbor Tunnel (I-895) and the Fort McHenry Tunnel (I-95).
The MDTA advised motorists to avoid the southeast corridor and use I-95 and I-895 as alternate travel routes. Motorists should also prepare for longer commute times.
As Dex Dunbar looked out over the ruins of the Key Bridge Tuesday morning, he was already calculating the changes to his commute. The Dundalk resident moved just three months ago from Glen Burnie — on the other side of the bridge — and last crossed it shortly before 9 p.m. on Monday after visiting with his mom.
“Welcome to the neighborhood,” said Dunbar, who teleworks but still makes frequent trips to see family and friends in Anne Arundel County. What would normally be a 10-minute drive across the bridge will now take much longer, whether he detours through the Harbor Tunnel, as his GPS suggested, or drives through the city.
“I’m still stuck [on] … just how am I going to begin to do this?” Dunbar said.
Jessye Talley, 37, makes it to work at Morgan State University from her Glen Burnie home in a half hour using the Key Bridge.
Talley woke up early Tuesday to plan a new route that included enough time to drop her child off at daycare in Baltimore. As she adjusts to using the Harbor Tunnel, Talley said she’ll think twice about traveling downtown for fun if the ride there is too much of a hassle.
“I’m sad,” Talley said. “It was convenient.”
The Key Bridge also was a critical roadway for trucks carrying hazardous materials, which are prohibited in the tunnels, or that are too large to travel through the tunnels under the Patapsco River. Those vehicles must now use the western section of I-695.
The ripple effect on traffic in the Baltimore region will extend well beyond one day’s commute. Celeste Chavis, professor and chair of Morgan State University’s Department of Transportation and Urban Infrastructure Studies, said the bridge’s closure will exacerbate congestion issues at tunnel crossings.
“It’s going to be tough,” Chavis said. “We’re taking away one of three key crossing points. That bridge has pretty high traffic connected to the harbor and Sparrows Point.”
As traffic increases, tens of thousands of people will change their behavior by finding new routes, leaving at different times or deciding not to make certain trips, Chavis said.
The Key Bridge, built in the mid-1970s to ease congestion at the Harbor Tunnel, made up 8% of the MDTA’s toll revenue in fiscal 2023, according to the MDTA report. The Fort McHenry Tunnel and Harbor Tunnel combined made up 43% of revenue. The tunnels recorded more than 70 million toll transactions in fiscal 2023, over 192,000 transactions each day.
Nearly 4,900 trucks traveled across the Key Bridge each day, and $28 billion in goods crossed in a year, said Sean McNally, a spokesperson for the American Trucking Associations.
Trucks carrying hazardous materials, including propane, will now “be subject to roughly 30 miles of detours around the City of Baltimore,” McNally wrote in an email. Vehicles taller than 13 feet, 6 inches, and wider than 8 feet are also prohibited from using the I-895 tunnel.
“This will add significant cost in time, fuel and delays for trucks traveling through the region, on top of the disruption that a closure of the Port of Baltimore will inflict on our economy,” McNally said.
“Aside from the obvious tragedy, this incident will have significant and long-lasting impacts on the region,” he said.
There was no impact on local or commuter bus routes Tuesday, according to Veronica Battisti, a spokesperson for the Maryland Transit Administration, though the agency listed more than 30 “affected routes” on a running list of service alerts on its website.
The Maryland Transportation Authority closed I-695’s outer loop at Route 10 (exit 2) and the inner loop at Route 157/Peninsula Expressway (exit 43).