Francis Scott Key Bridge (Baltimore)

Francis Scott Key Bridge
View from Fort Armistead Park in 2015
Coordinates	39°13′1″N 76°31′42″W / 39.21694°N 76.52833°W / 39.21694; -76.52833
Carried	4 lanes of I-695 Toll / MD 695
Crossed	Patapsco River
Locale	Baltimore metropolitan area, Maryland, U.S.
Maintained by	Maryland Transportation Authority
ID number	300000BCZ472010
Website	mdta.maryland.gov/Toll_Facilities/FSK.html
Characteristics
Design	Steel arch-shaped continuous through truss bridge
Material	Steel
Total length	8,636 feet (2,632.3 m; 1.6 mi)
Longest span	1,200 feet (366 m)
Clearance below	185 feet (56 m)[1]
History
Designer	J. E. Greiner Company[2]
Construction start	1972; 52 years ago (1972)[3]
Opened	March 23, 1977; 47 years ago (1977-03-23)
Collapsed	March 26, 2024; 2 months ago (2024-03-26)
Statistics
Toll	$4.00
Location

The Francis Scott Key Bridge (informally, Key Bridge or Beltway Bridge) is a partially collapsed bridge in greater Baltimore, Maryland. Opened in 1977, it collapsed on March 26, 2024, after a container ship struck one of its piers.^[4][5] Officials have announced plans to replace the bridge by fall 2028.^[6]

It was built as a steel arch continuous through truss bridge that spanned the lower Patapsco River and outer Baltimore Harbor/Port in Maryland, United States. Opened on March 23, 1977, it carried the Baltimore Beltway (Interstate 695 or I-695) between Dundalk in Baltimore County and Hawkins Point, an isolated southern neighborhood of Baltimore, while briefly passing through Anne Arundel County.

Initially named the Outer Harbor Crossing, the bridge was renamed in 1976 for poet Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner", the U.S. national anthem. At 8,636 feet (2,632 m), it was the second-longest bridge in the Baltimore metropolitan area, after the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Its main span of 1,200 feet (366 m) was the third-longest of any continuous truss in the world.^[7]

Operated by the Maryland Transportation Authority (MDTA), the bridge was the outermost of three toll crossings of Baltimore's harbor, along with the Baltimore Harbor and Fort McHenry tunnels. The bridge carried an estimated 11.5 million vehicles annually, including many trucks carrying hazardous materials that are prohibited in the tunnels. The construction of the bridge and its approaches completed the two-decade effort to build I-695, although the bridge roadway was officially a state road: the unsigned Maryland Route 695.^[8][9]