Cargo ship strikes bridge between New Jersey and Philadelphia, causing traffic backup

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A cargo ship struck a bridge across the Delaware River on Thursday, disrupting traffic between Palmyra, New Jersey, and Philadelphia, according to a Pennsylvania lawmaker.

The collision left the 3,659-foot-long (1,115-meter-long) Tacony-Palmyra Bridge unable to close, causing a major backup on the Philadelphia side, state Rep. Ed Neilson said in a news release. No injuries have been reported, he said.

The U.S. Coast Guard said the cargo vessel is currently moored at a Kinder Morgan facility in Bristol, Pennsylvania, where an inspection team is on site. The Coast Guard has not yet released further information on the ship’s owner or operator.

The drawbridge was open for ships to pass through at the time of the collision around 1:15 p.m., according to the Coast Guard. It remained open afterward because another vessel needed to pass through, and has since come back down.

The steel bridge carries vehicles along Route 73 between Palmyra and the Tacony neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia. It has three lanes of vehicular traffic, two into Philadelphia and one into New Jersey. Estimates from 2025 show the bridge can carry as many as 76,200 vehicles each day.

No one answered the phone Thursday afternoon at the Burlington County Bridge Commission, which owns, operates and maintains the bridge. A recorded message said the bridge is closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic until further notice, and that an update would be provided in time for evening rush hour.

Opened in 1929, the Tacony-Palmyra toll bridge was found to be in “fair” condition, according to the Federal Highway Administration’s 2026 National Bridge Inventory data released this fall.

Inspectors rated the deck of the Tacony-Palmyra Bridge as in good condition, the substructure as in fair condition and the superstructure — the component that absorbs the live traffic load — as fair.

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Associated Press journalists Hannah Schoenbaum in Salt Lake City, Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, and Christopher L. Keller in Albuquerque, New Mexico, contributed.