Washington Street Bridge, Morris County
| This article appeared in the December 2004 issue of Mobility Matters. By Ted Ritter. |
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| The existing Washington Street Bridge will be preserved for pedestrian use. The new span is under construction. |
The question was this: How to replace a century-old truss bridge on one of the busiest routes in Morris County — and in an historic district to boot — while maintaining some sense of the district’s heritage and keeping traffic flowing? The answer wasn’t a simple one, but finding a solution was a little bit easier with funds from the NJTPA’s Local Scoping and Local Lead programs.
The Washington Street Bridge, built around 1895, traverses the headwaters of the Jersey City Reservoir, connecting Boonton to Parsippany. The structurally deficient and functionally obsolete bridge is in critical condition. Now, thanks to NJTPA funding, the structure is being replaced with a new, modern bridge with two travel lanes and a shoulder in each direction, as well as a sidewalk on one side.
The bridge's location created a variety of challenges, says Assistant Morris County Engineer Sandy Thapar. The county couldn't simply shut down Route 202 for construction, he said, and “this being an historic district and with the bridge being eligible for the National Register of Historic Places . . . I think we studied 10 different alignments to start with, and then narrowed that down to three.”
Other complications included the fact that the bridge is on the Jersey City Drinking Water Reservoir, creating additional environmental and jurisdictional issues. And the bridge links two municipalities, each with their own concerns. Thapar says that despite these complications, the work has been a success. Considering “a job of this size and the location where it is . . . I think we did all right,” he says.
Historical issues provided an interesting challenge for project managers. The State Historic Preservation Office (SHPO) asked the county to preserve the old bridge and relocate it to a park or similar place. But, Thapar explains, a bridge of this size, with a depth of more than 20 feet couldn’t realistically be relocated at all. The county’s creative solution was to keep the existing bridge in place and install the new bridge just upstream of the existing span.
“So we have, in the end, two bridges,” Thapar says. In addition to the new passenger vehicle bridge on a realigned Route 202, the original span will serve as a pedestrian bridge.” The old bridge will be good for at least another 15 years of pedestrian use, Thapar says, and it will feature benches and other amenities. It will be sandblasted, cleaned, and repainted. The county worked with SHPO to determine what type of repairs would be acceptable and to make sure the style and stonework of the new bridge complements the old one. The new bridge is scheduled to open in April of 2005, and repairs to the old bridge will likely be completed by the end of next year.
There is little doubt that federal funding from the NJTPA was critical to the project’s success. “With the cost of the new bridge design and replacement at nearly $17 million, there was just no way the county could have undertaken this project without federal or state aid,” Thapar says.
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Clinton Avenue Bridge, Somerset County
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| A scenic view of the Clinton Avenue Bridge in Greenbrook Park. |
Replacing a bridge is complicated and expensive enough in most cases, but Somerset County faced an additional challenge in replacing the Clinton Avenue Bridge over the Green Brook. Officials wanted the new bridge to look as much like the historic old one, which happened to be located near a popular scenic park. Thanks to assistance from the NJTPA’s Local Scoping and Local Lead programs, the challenge was met.
The old bridge, which links North Plainfield in Somerset County and Plainfield in Union County, dated to 1922 and handled nearly a thousand vehicles a day during peak travel times. But the bridge deck and its support structure were in bad shape, according to Principal Somerset County Engineer John Kendzulak. The old bridge had even been closed to heavy vehicle traffic for some time. The new bridge meets modern engineering and design standards and has travel lanes, shoulders and sidewalks in each direction. The alignment of the bridge was improved as well.
Kendzulak noted that while the bridge is new, the accompanying landscaping, coloration and concrete work attempt to capture the feel of the old structure, including its “fake arch look.” County officials wanted the bridge to mesh well with its surroundings. It is just off Green Brook Park, which has a look similar to the famous work of the Olmstead brothers, who designed Manhattan’s Central Park and some of the region’s other famous greenspaces.
“We tried to put back the bridge that was there,” Kendzulak said. “The [new] bridge is certainly worth taking a picture of from an aesthetic standpoint; it’s in a park setting and it came out pretty nice.”
Through the NJTPA’s Local Scoping/Local Lead programs, this project received more than $1.5 million in federal funding. “That’s a decent chunk of change when it comes to our capital budget,” Kendzulak said. he added that the county, on its own, would never be able to finance projects like this one, along with others that get Local Scoping/Local Lead money from the NJTPA, including $11 million in funding for the current 2004 fiscal year. “It’s very important to us,” Kendulzak said of the local funding provided through the NJTPA.
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Traffic Signal Improvements to 33 Intersections, Hudson County
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| One of the intersections improved through this project is at 48th Street and JFK Boulevard. |
Projects like this one illustrate how the NJTPA’s local funding programs help counties make seemingly small transportation improvements add up to provide a big enhancement to the overall transportation network. It’s easy to take traffic signals for granted, until one malfunctions or cannot be seen from the road. That’s when the importance of reliable, modern, and properly designed traffic signals hit home.
This 2001 project upgraded signals at 33 intersections on John F. Kennedy Boulevard, a major north-south roadway through Bayonne, Jersey City and North Bergen. With one exception, all of these intersections had traffic signals before this project, but they weren’t in compliance with modern standards. They also were mechanically controlled, rather than automated, and most of the steel traffic signal poles were rusting.
“This is something we had been working on for about 20 years,” said John Lane of the Hudson County Department of Engineering and Planning. “Some of our traffic signals were probably from when we first started in the 1930s, and some of the signals were hiding behind trees and not exactly in the right position for drivers and pedestrians to see them.”
This project involved replacing the existing signals with new state-of-the-art ones, starting at the southern end of Bayonne and extending to the northern edge of North Bergen. The improvements not only enhanced traffic and pedestrian safety, they also eased traffic congestion. Including the names of cross streets above the intersection near the signal also helped provide direction to drivers.
After 7 p.m., when traffic drops off dramatically, the modern signals are controlled by sensors in the pavement and buttons for pedestrians, so they only change as needed.
Lane highlights the fact that, without federal funding through the NJTPA, it would have been virtually impossible for the county to tackle the upgrading of these intersections, especially all at once. With costs of about $100,000 per intersection, Lane notes, “at best you’d be able to do a million dollars here or a million there, and that’s still just ten intersections at a time. With the Local Lead program, we were able to get the design money first, and then the construction funds maybe a year later and we were then able to knock off many signals at a time.”
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Mantoloking Bridge, Ocean County
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| Pilings and support structure for the new Mantoloking Bridge. |
The Mantoloking Bridge is “limping along for the time being” says Ocean County Engineer Ron Lotrecchio. The moveable span is obsolete, and weight restrictions in place since 1992 force fire trucks to be housed in a temporary station on one side so they don’t have to cross the deteriorating span over Barnegat Bay between Brick Township and Mantoloking. County officials knew something had to be done, and the NJTPA’s Local Scoping and Local Lead programs provided the key assistance the county needed. The existing bridge is being replaced with a $20 million state-of-the-art structure offering greater clearance. That’s critical, because the bridge currently requires 5,000 openings a year. The new, higher bridge will only need to be opened about 2,000 times a year, meaning less of an impact on traffic and less wear and tear on the bridge itself.
Also critical will be the lifting of the 4-ton weight restriction that has caused problems for fire trucks and other heavy vehicles. “We wanted to restore full access, and fully connecting Brick and Mantoloking will provide some relief to other areas of Ocean County that are currently experiencing the truck route detour,”said Lotrecchio. If all goes well, traffic will be running across the new bridge as soon as next spring, with completion of the full project expected by late fall 2005.
Another less obvious aspect of this project reflects one of the Jersey Shore’s perennial concerns: Evacuation of barrier islands during storms or similar emergencies. The new bridge will be 10 feet wider, allowing for greater flexibility during such crises. “We could carry — in evacuation mode — two lanes westbound and still have the ability to have one lane on the shoulder eastbound for emergency vehicle access,” Lotrecchio said.
Again in this case, the Local Scoping/Local Lead programs were critical. “The scoping process really helped us get this project moving forward and eventually through initial design,” Lotrecchio said. In all, $12 million in federal funding for the bridge replacement project came through the NJTPA.
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Springfield Avenue, 21st to Market Street Essex County
This project — the resurfacing of a long stretch of one of Essex County’s busiest county routes — shows how federal funds can be used for seemingly routine local projects that lead to big savings in the long run.
“With a resurfacing project, you increase the life of the infrastructure,” says Mihir Shah, principal engineer with Essex County’s Highway Section. “Let’s say you don’t resurface for a long time. You are going to end up spending more money and time by doing the roadway foundation itself.”
The project, funded in 2001, helped repair more than two miles of Springfield Avenue (County Route 603) in Newark. The surface of the road, a main thoroughfare for people traveling toward Newark, the airport and Penn Station, was “really falling apart,” Shah said. There were irregular cracks, patch deterioration, crumbling sidewalks and curbs, and missing curb cuts as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Shah also indicates that, without the help of the NJTPA’s Local Lead program, it’s likely the county would not have been able to undertake a project of this scale. “If we didn’t have the money, I’m guessing the county would most likely have done this resurfacing in sections, along with the handicapped ramps, but the curbs and sidewalks probably wouldn’t have been touched,” Shah said. “I’m sure the county wouldn’t have had $3 million to spend on one roadway resurfacing; we definitely need the money.”
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Belford Ferry Road Bridge and Bulkhead, Monmouth County
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| A sideview of the bridge to the Belford ferry terminal. |
Ferry commuting is more popular than ever for residents of the northern Jersey Shore, but not long ago there were fewer options for those travelers. This project — advanced with funds from the NJTPA's Local Lead program — was a key, initial step in the creation of the busy Belford Ferry Terminal on the southern shore of Raritan Bay in Monmouth County.
The 268-acre waterfront site in the Belford section of Monmouth County’s Middletown Township required improved bulkheads, roadway construction, a bridge and other improvements to support ferry operations.
Henry Nicholson, the director of the Monmouth County Division of Transportation, said the bridge was instrumental in showing the county was committed to expanding ferry service.
“The bridge piece of this project showed the community that we were serious about the ferry terminal project and we were really going in there,” Nicholson said. In July 1998, the NJTPA provided more than $1.1 million for the bridge and roadway access to the site.
This also was the first and only ferry-related project funded by the Local Scoping/Local Lead programs in the region. “Before this project, ferryboats were laughed at, basically; they weren’t considered to be a reasonable means of transportation,” Nicholson said. “Nobody really thought it was a way to move people. And we kept insisting that the idea of using what we call the ‘water bridge’ would become a hugely important way to move people in the future and, of course, we saw that after 9/11.”
Like his counterparts in other NJTPA subregions, Nicholson attests to the importance of Local Scoping and Local Lead funding to Monmouth County. “We simply wouldn’t be able to do a lot of the things that we do, in terms of transportation improvements, without it,” he said.