By John Burton
RED BANK – If all goes according to scheduled, the rubber will meet the road on the largely completed West Front Bridge in time for next May’s Memorial Day weekend.
Before then, however, drivers should prepare themselves for months of traffic detours with the planned closing of the span in January.
Monmouth County Engineer Joseph Ettore said the ongoing project to construct a new bridge across the Swimming River will require closing the roadway and existing bridge, starting in January and lasting as long as April or May, as workers do some of the near final major work on the structure.
The upcoming traffic detours will be determined by local law enforcement, he said.
For now, the project remains on schedule and on budget, Ettore said. Barring any unforeseen delays, the bridge will be largely completed and available for traffic by late next May.
“We are very pleased how we’re progressing,” Ettore said.
Employees of the contractor this week completed pouring the span’s concrete deck, Ettore said.
Once that portion of the work is done, the contractor is expected to begin working on the sidewalks and other items, including the parapets and lighting fixtures, Ettore said.
The old bridge’s closure and the rerouting of traffic was always part of the project. It is planned for after the holiday season “to minimize the impact” on those driving in the area, he said.
County officials closed the bridge from 10 p.m. to 4 a.m. for vehicular and pedestrian traffic for about 10 days in July and August to allow workers to set 80-foot-long beams – 42 of them – on the bridge’s abutments and piers.
The closing of West Front Street near and over the bridge will allow the new bridge to be tied into the roadways “so that by Memorial Day 2015 we should have traffic actually traveling over the new bridge,” he said.
“That doesn’t complete the project,” however, Ettore pointed out, but gets traffic flowing on the span again.
Once the thoroughfare is reopened, workers will be concentrating on putting the finishing touches on the bridge, doing some additional site improvements and demolishing the old bridge, he said.
The project, estimated to cost $12 million, began construction in September 2013. The existing two-lane county bridge, S-17, is usually referred to as Hubbard’s Bridge or West Front Street Bridge. It is approximately 340 feet and connects Red Bank to Middletown’s River Plaza section. It was constructed in 1921.
Ettore and state transportation officials have long advocated for the replacement of the aging and rusting steel structure.
The project is being fully funded by federal transportation dollars.
The bridge has an average daily traffic flow of more than 17,000 vehicles daily, according to the county engineering department.
