The Great Egg Harbor Bridge is a series of four bridges along the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey, with tolls collected in the southbound direction. It crosses the Great Egg Harbor Bay, connecting Upper Township, in Cape May County to Somers Point in Atlantic County. The bridge crosses over a section of Egg Harbor Township, and Drag Island. It carries a portion of U.S. Route 9. The Beesley's Point Generating Station can be seen from the bridge. Description The Garden State Parkway is a tolled limited-access highway that serves as the primary route connecting the Jersey Shore to points north and south in New Jersey. Upper Township in Cape May County connects with Somers Point via the Great Egg Harbor Bridge on the Parkway. This bridge first crosses over Harbor Road, which is the last street in Beesley's Point, connecting homes along Great Egg Harbor Bay and Peck Bay to U.S. Route 9. The bridge then crosses Great Egg Harbor Bay to Drag Island, which it crosses as a causeway. A small portion of the bridge enters Egg Harbor Township. Another bridge crosses Drag Channel to the mainland of Atlantic County in Somers Point. As with the rest of the Garden State Parkway, the bridge is a component of the National Highway System, a network of roadways that are important to the country's economy, defense, and mobility. The bridge carries two lanes of traffic in each direction. The bridge is used heavily in the summertime, peaking on Saturdays. History In 1952, the New Jersey Highway Authority (NJHA) was created to facilitate the construction of the Garden State Parkway. In October 1954, the NJHA received bids for constructing a bridge crossing the Great Egg Harbor Bay, beginning at Beesley's Point, as well as a bridge crossing Drag Channel. The bridges would be linked by a causeway, and form a part of the Garden State Parkway. In construction, the bridge project utilized 140 prestressed concrete beams, each in length, at a cost of $640 each (1954 USD). The project also used a concrete deck at the cost of less than $2 per ft2. On May 26, 1956, the Great Egg Harbor Bridge opened at a cost of $4.5 million, completing the Garden State Parkway. The bridge carried traffic in both directions, but soon was unable to accommodate the increasing traffic. A parallel bridge carrying northbound traffic was opened in 1972. In