BALTIMORE — A new analysis found that neither span of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge meets modern risk thresholds for vessel strikes, Maryland officials said Monday in a response to a scathing report from the National Transportation Safety Board.

Maryland Department of Transportation officials said in a letter that they would act on the risk assessment, conducted in the wake of the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse, to protect the Bay Bridge from similar ship strikes.

The letter from Maryland Transportation Secretary Paul Wiedefeld was in response to a strongly worded safety recommendation issued last month that stemmed from the NTSB’s monthslong investigation into the March 26, 2024, bridge collapse that killed six construction workers. The transportation department did not include specifics of the assessment in its letter.

Last month, the safety board said it had found that the Maryland Transportation Authority did not conduct an industry-standard — but not required — risk assessment that would have found the Key Bridge to be in danger of a catastrophic ship strike. They warned the owners of 68 bridges across the U.S., including the Bay Bridge, to conduct those modern assessments.

Maryland officials said that the state had initiated a $160 million project last spring, in the wake of the Key Bridge collapse, to look into additional protection for the Bay Bridge. They paid $600,000 to a maritime infrastructure-focused consulting firm, Moffatt & Nichol, to conduct a study phase under an existing contract with the state.

State officials stressed in a news release that they were “not obligated to do so under the law” and that the Bay Bridge has been “found to be in safe and satisfactory condition” in annual bridge inspections over the past 30 years. They said the two spans’ current design and condition are in compliance with their federal permit, meaning that it did not “require” any modification.

The transportation department said it was working on further action to protect the Bay Bridge, including short-term adjustments to “communication protocols for vessel pilots, reduced vessel speeds, one-way transits, and methods to manage vehicular traffic on the bridge.”

In the longer term, the department said it might implement physical protection measures such as dolphins — circular structures built near bridge piers that serve as bumpers — and other types of pier fenders.

The project was expected to move into its design phase in the summer, though procurement and a timeline were still being determined, the agency said.

The risk assessment of the Bay Bridge was based on standards set by the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials in the wake of the Sunshine Skyway Bridge collapse in 1980 in Florida. By the mid-1990s, those standards were required for new bridges. Officials were not required to conduct that analysis on older bridges, though the panel recommended that bridge owners test by those vessel strike standards regardless.

The Key Bridge, built in the 1970s, was never tested by those modern standards. Until now, neither was the Bay Bridge, which opened its eastbound span in 1952 and its westbound span in 1973. However, Maryland officials did conduct terrorism-focused risk assessments related to vessel strikes on bridges after the 9/11 attacks.

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