The Francis Scott Key Bridge, also known originally as the Outer Harbor Crossing (until renamed for FSK in 1977) or simply as the Key Bridge or Beltway Bridge, is a steel arch-shaped continuous through truss bridge spanning the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor / Port in

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, United States. The main span of is the third longest span of any continuous truss in the world.Durkee, Jackson
World's Longest Bridge Spans
National Steel Bridge Alliance, May 24, 1999. It is also the longest bridge in the Baltimore metropolitan area. The bridge was opened in March 1977 and is named for the author of the American

national anthem A national anthem is a patriotic musical composition symbolizing and evoking eulogies of the history and traditions of a country or nation. The majority of national anthems are marches or hymns in style. American, Central Asian, and Europea ...

, the poem originally called ''"The Defence of Fort McHenry"'' written in September 1814 and later set to music and entitled the ''" Star Spangled Banner"'' by Frederick and Georgetown lawyer /amateur poet Francis Scott Key (1779–1843). The bridge is the outermost of three toll crossings of

Baltimore Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

's Harbor (two tunnels and one bridge). Upon completion, the bridge structure and its approaches became the final links in Interstate 695 (the "Baltimore Beltway"), completing a two decades long project. Despite the I-695 signage, the bridge is officially considered part of the state highway system and designated Maryland Route 695. The bridge is long and carries an estimated 11.5 million vehicles annually. It is a designated

hazardous materials Dangerous goods, abbreviated DG, are substances that when transported are a risk to health, safety, property or the environment. Certain dangerous goods that pose risks even when not being transported are known as hazardous materials ( syllab ...

truck route, as HAZMATs are prohibited in the

Baltimore Harbor Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore is a shipping port along the tidal basins of the three branches of the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland on the upper northwest shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the nation's largest port facilities fo ...

and Fort McHenry tunnels. The Key Bridge is a toll facility operated by the

Maryland Transportation Authority The Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA) is an independent state agency responsible for financing, constructing, operating, and maintaining eight transportation facilities, currently consisting of two toll roads, two tunnels, and four bridge ...

(MDTA). The toll rate for cars as of July 1, 2013 is $4.00. The bridge is also part of the E-ZPass system, and includes two dedicated E-ZPass lanes in its toll plaza in both the northbound and southbound directions. In April 2019, MDTA announced that the bridge will become a cashless toll facility by October 2019. With this system, customers without E-ZPass pay using

video tolling Video tolling (sometimes referred to as video billing, toll by plate, pay by mail, or pay by plate) is a form of electronic toll collection, which uses video or still images of a vehicle's license plate to identify a vehicle liable to pay a road ...

. Cashless tolling began on the bridge on October 30, 2019.

Background

In the 1960s, the old Maryland State Roads Commission concluded there was a need for a second harbor crossing after the earlier Baltimore Harbor Thruway and Tunnel opened in 1957 and began planning another single-tube

tunnel A tunnel is an underground passageway, dug through surrounding soil, earth or rock, and enclosed except for the entrance and exit, commonly at each end. A pipeline is not a tunnel, though some recent tunnels have used immersed tube cons ...

under the Patapsco River, further to the southeast, downstream from the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel. The proposed site was between Hawkins Point and Sollers Point in the outer harbor. Plans also were underway for a drawbridge to the south over

Curtis Creek Curtis Creek is a tidal creek located in Baltimore City and Anne Arundel County, Maryland. It is a tributary of the cove Curtis Bay and is adjacent to the west of the South Baltimore community of Curtis Bay. The creek begins at the confluence ...

(replacing an earlier 1931 drawbridge carrying Pennington Avenue over the creek) to connect Hawkins Point to Sollers Point. (At the same time, a bridge was planned for the segment of an additional through highway for the East Coast with

I-95 Interstate 95 (I-95) is the main north–south Interstate Highway on the East Coast of the United States, running from US Route 1 (US 1) in Miami, Florida, to the Houlton–Woodstock Border Crossing between Maine and the Canadia ...

that would run through the city near

Fort McHenry Fort McHenry is a historical American coastal pentagonal bastion fort on Locust Point, now a neighborhood of Baltimore, Maryland. It is best known for its role in the War of 1812, when it successfully defended Baltimore Harbor from an attack ...

and paralleling the now two decades old Harbor Tunnel Thruway; this was replaced by what is now known as the

Fort McHenry Tunnel The Fort McHenry Tunnel is a four-tube, bi-directional tunnel that carries traffic on Interstate 95 (I-95) underneath the Baltimore Harbor. The lowest point in the Interstate System under water, the tunnel is named for nearby Fort McHenry. T ...

, a major expensive project four-tube facility running under and curving around historic 1798 Fort McHenry that opened in 1985). Contractors took bearings of the outer harbor bottom and ship channel in the spring of 1969. Bids for construction of the proposed tunnel were opened on July 30, 1970, but price proposals were substantially higher than the engineering estimates. Officials drafted alternative plans, including the concept of a four-lane

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

. The bridge, at an estimated cost of $110 (

USD The United States dollar (symbol: $; code: USD; also abbreviated US$ or U.S. Dollar, to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies; referred to as the dollar, U.S. dollar, American dollar, or colloquially buck) is the official ...

) million, represented the best alternative because it allowed for more traffic lanes and carried lower operating and maintenance costs than a tunnel. In addition, a bridge would provide a route across the Baltimore Harbor for vehicles transporting

(these materials are prohibited from both the Baltimore Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels). Construction began in 1972, and the bridge opened to traffic on March 23, 1977. Including its connecting approaches, the bridge project is in length. Other structures along the thruway include a

dual-span Twin bridges are a set of two bridges running parallel to each other. A pair of twin bridges is often referred to collectively as a twin-span or dual-span bridge. Twin bridges are independent structures and each bridge has its own superstructu ...

drawbridge over Curtis Creek and two parallel bridge structures that carry traffic over Bear Creek, near the former

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...

Sparrows Point Sparrow's Point is an unincorporated community in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States, adjacent to Dundalk. Named after Thomas Sparrow, landowner, it was the site of a very large industrial complex owned by Bethlehem Steel, known for steelm ...

plant, this portion of the project not being fully complete until the late 1990s. Located in an area rich with American history, scholars believe the span crosses within of the site, marked in the water off the bridge by a red-white-blue buoy with stars and stripes painted on it, where Francis Scott Key, held aboard an American truce ship with the British Royal Navy fleet witnessed the bombardment of

on the days and nights of September 12-13-14, 1814. That battle and bombardment inspired Key to write the words of the Star Spangled Banner. Located just southeast of the bridge and adjacent underneath are the ruins of the island shoals of Sollers Flats with

Fort Carroll Fort Carroll is a artificial island and abandoned hexagonal sea fort in the middle of the Patapsco River, just south of Baltimore, Maryland. It is named for Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737–1832), a signer of the Declaration of Independe ...

, begun building in the 1840s under the supervision of

United States Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...

Corps of Engineers, then Col. Robert E. Lee. There is another bridge called the Francis Scott Key Bridge, located in

Washington, DC ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

US 29 U.S. Route 29 (US 29) is a north–south United States highway that runs for from Pensacola, Florida to the western suburbs of Baltimore, Maryland in the Southern United States, connecting the Florida Panhandle to the Baltimore-Washington ...

. It crosses the

Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augus ...

, and links the District in Georgetown on the north shore to Reston and

Arlington, Virginia Arlington County is a county in the Commonwealth of Virginia. The county is situated in Northern Virginia on the southwestern bank of the Potomac River directly across from the District of Columbia, of which it was once a part. The county is ...

to the south. File:KeyBridge.Baltimore.MD.jpg, Key Bridge with Baltimore in background, viewed from Cox Creek Industrial Park, in northeast Anne Arundel County, November 2011 to the south File:Francis Scott Key Bridge Eastern View.jpg, Key Bridge looking to the northeast with Sparrows Point and the Bethlehem Steel Corporation steel mill and shipyards of southeast Baltimore County in the distance, February 2018

References

External links

Maryland Transportation Authority, Francis Scott Key Bridge websiteSteve Anderson's DCroads.net: Francis Scott Key Bridge (I-695)
{{Baltimore bridges and tunnels Crossings of the Patapsco River Transportation buildings and structures in Baltimore Toll bridges in Maryland Bridges completed in 1977 Tolled sections of Interstate Highways Interstate 95 Continuous truss bridges in the United States Road bridges in Maryland Bridges on the Interstate Highway System Steel bridges in the United States 1977 establishments in Maryland