ANNAPOLIS, Md. – Since the Key Bridge’s collapse on March 26, work crews have freed the container ship that caused the disaster and removed tons of mangled steel and concrete from the Patapsco River. But for many nearby residents, the aftershocks linger.
On a typical day before the collapse, 34,000 vehicles would traverse the bridge, a crucial link in the Interstate 695 Baltimore Beltway. More than 10% of those trips involved commercial trucks, according to data compiled by the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.
Authorities have barricaded the last few hundred yards of pavement on either side of the river. Now, an eerie tranquility hangs in the air instead of car exhaust and the din of traffic.
Those albatrosses have simply flown elsewhere. As state and federal officials pivot toward rebuilding the bridge, some neighborhoods are grappling with a flood of potential health and environmental woes brought on by the diverted traffic.
Those include communities such as Curtis Bay, Brooklyn and Brooklyn Park — areas already reeling from industrial pollution, poverty, disproportionately poor health and other stressors.
“There’s a baseline level of truck traffic that moves through the community, and since the bridge collapse, there’s a huge increase in truck traffic,” said Meredith Chaiken, CEO of the Greater Baybrook Alliance, a neighborhood revitalization group serving the South Baltimore peninsula.
Many people are finding heavier traffic right outside their front doors, she added. “I’m not talking about industrial parts of the city,” Chaiken said.
With the reconstruction of the Key Bridge not yet begun and its completion not expected until around October 2028, community leaders and residents are settling in for a long ordeal.
Motor vehicle emissions are laden with toxics, including hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter. A long line of medical research suggests that people living or working near busy roads face higher risks of developing heart problems, lung cancer, asthma and other health troubles.
It appears to be too early to conclusively say whether the additional traffic has boosted air pollution in certain neighborhoods. No research has been released documenting the impacts to air quality since the bridge collapse.
Researchers say they continue to measure air quality using ground-based sensors and vehicle-mounted tools as part of a project that predated the collapse in Curtis Bay, a residential community surrounded by industrial plants southwest of the Key Bridge. A team led by the University of Maryland published a paper in September with data collected before the collapse, showing high levels of black carbon, a pollutant expelled by many heavy-duty trucks during stop-and-go traffic.
Russell Dickerson, an atmospheric professor at the university and the study’s lead author, said that much more data needs to be collected before making any broad assertions about air quality changes related to recent traffic shifts. But on the northeast side of the bridge, the air is trending cleaner because of a dip in commercial truck traffic there, he said.
Drivers traveling between the east side of Baltimore and northern Anne Arundel County have been forced to make elaborate detours. With only two Patapsco River crossings remaining — Interstate 895’s Baltimore Harbor Tunnel and Interstate 95’s Fort McHenry Tunnel — a formerly 20-minute commute from Dundalk to Ferndale has ballooned to 41 minutes, according to the Baltimore Metropolitan Council.
Traffic accidents have risen sharply on the impacted roads as well, authorities say.
“You only have three crossings of the harbor, and [if] you take away one, you’re going to pay for it,” said Ed Stylc, a transportation analyst at the council.
At a community cleanup event on a sunshine-drenched November morning, more than a dozen volunteers armed with rakes and trash bags gathered outside a sports bar on Hanover Street in Brooklyn. At its post-collapse low point, travel times on Hanover north of I-895 were 40% worse than the previous year, according to the council’s analysis.
Hanover spans just four lanes and bisects Brooklyn’s central business district, where shops crowd close to the road. But it has nonetheless become a focal point for large trucks seeking alternative routes in recent months. Potee Street, a segment of Maryland Route 2 that parallels Hanover, is generally better equipped to handle such traffic, but its lower bridge clearances are barriers for taller vehicles.
With more traffic streaming through the area, more drivers seem to be taking the opportunity at stoplights to unload garbage out of their windows, said Alicia Lucksted as she raked up candy wrappers and plastic bottle tops.
On local roads to the west of the Key Bridge, trucks seem to be spending more time idling at stoplights, she and other residents say. Lucksted said she’s accustomed to the thick coat of black dust on her car from the coal terminal at nearby Curtis Bay, but there seems to be more of it lately. She blames the extra truck exhaust hovering in the air.
“I haven’t gone as far as to have it tested, but it’s black,” Lucksted said.
In the Brooklyn area, the onslaught of truck congestion represents just another in a series of setbacks. “We have a history of being a dumping ground,” said Jan Eveland, founder and CEO of Action Baybrook, an anti-blight group.
Other disadvantaged communities have been impacted as well. The Baltimore Metropolitan Council examined the demographics of nine zip codes near the Key Bridge: Brooklyn, Curtis Bay, Dundalk, Essex, Glen Burnie, Highlandtown, Middle River, Pasadena and Sparrows Point.
Under the analysis, a neighborhood is classified as having environmental justice concerns if its share of low-income residents is above the Baltimore region’s average of 21% or it has a minority population above the 45% regional average. Across greater Baltimore, 56% of neighborhoods met that threshold; among the Key Bridge-adjacent zip codes, 61% met it, the researchers found.
But not everyone has seen traffic worsen.
Gloria Nelson, president of the Turner Station Conservation Teams, said her community east of the bridge has been quieter since the trucks were forced to seek other river crossings. She hopes that the Maryland Transportation Authority, which operates the Key Bridge, installs a sound barrier on the rebuilt bridge to ensure that the peace continues.