PATH Lift Bridge, Railway vertical-lift bridge in Jersey City, New Jersey, US.
The PATH Lift Bridge is a steel railway bridge that crosses the Hackensack River between Kearny and Jersey City, carrying the PATH commuter rail line. Its central span is designed to lift straight up, clearing the waterway for boat traffic below.
The bridge was built around 1900 as the rail network in northern New Jersey expanded to meet growing demand for connections to New York. A vertical-lift design was chosen because the Hackensack River was still actively used by boat traffic at the time.
The PATH line carries commuters between New Jersey and Manhattan every day, and this crossing is part of that daily routine. Most passengers pass over it without looking up, yet the river view from the train window is worth a glance.
The bridge is best seen from the PATH train on the line running between Journal Square and Newark, where the crossing over the Hackensack River is clearly visible from the window. It can also be spotted from certain streets in Kearny and Jersey City without any special access.
The counterweights built into the bridge mechanism are made of solid concrete and together weigh around 450 tons, balancing the steel center span so it can be raised using far less power than its weight would suggest. This same principle, borrowed from simple lever physics, is still used in vertical-lift bridges built today.
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