Benjamin Franklin Bridge

The Benjamin Franklin Bridge - originally named the Delaware River Bridge, and now informally called the Ben Franklin Bridge - is a suspension bridge across the Delaware River connecting Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Camden, New Jersey. Owned and operated by the Delaware River Port Authority, it is one of four primary vehicular bridges between Philadelphia and southern New Jersey, along with the Betsy Ross, Walt Whitman, and Tacony-Palmyra bridges. It carries Interstate 676/U.S. Route 30.The bridge was dedicated as part of the 1926 Sesquicentennial Exposition, celebrating the 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. From 1926 to 1929, it had the longest single span of any suspension bridge in the world.HistoryPlans for a bridge to augment the ferries across the Delaware River began as early as 1818, when one plan envisioned using Smith/Windmill Island, a narrow island off the Philadelphia shore. But it was only in the 1910s that visions began to approach reality. The Delaware River Bridge Joint Commission (now the Delaware River Port Authority) was created in 1919.