I suspect the winning bridge design in Baltimore is going to include massive starlings, beyond what is normal, or some other mitigation factor for the last disaster.

So maybe earthquake-proofing is a fair comparison, cost-wise.

They’re just going to put more dolphins around the pylons. They had a few already but they were poorly placed and had an opening a container ship could slip through.

"an opening a container ship could slip through" -- I'm going to use that to mock security people at my work

The cheapest option (and most profitable to tug operators) is to require that ships over a certain tonnage be tug escorted past the bridge.

It definitely needs to be earthquake-resistant; we get earthquakes here constantly.

Another interesting fact about the Tokyo Gate Bridge (from the Wikipedia article): it's basically made of 3 sections, the two sides and one smaller piece in the middle to connect them. The two side pieces are cantilevers, so they're self-supporting. So if a big container ship managed to strike one side and knock it down, theoretically the other side would remain standing, rather than the whole thing collapsing like the Baltimore bridge.