It happened on schedule. The new $21.9 million West Front Street (or Hubbard’s) Bridge opened just in time for Memorial Day on Monday, but work will continue.
The old, temporary bridge will be removed; and, with that, finishing touches on the bridge approaches and amenities will be wrapped up within a year or so, Monmouth County officials said in a release.
Concrete sidewalks with an ADA accessible route from Hubbard Avenue, on the Middletown side, to Rector Place/Shrewsbury Avenue, on the Red Bank side, will be completed. Roadways will be widened slightly on the bridge approaches.
Decorative parapets, guide rail treatments, storm water drainage and ornamental lighting will also be added.
With the contentious 19-week closure of the 94-year-old span over the Swimming River between Red Bank and Middletown slowing down traffic, the new permanent structure is taking on all the pedestrian and vehicular traffic it was meant to take on, and safely, county officials announced on Monday.
“Local residents, commuters and travelers have been looking forward to this day since Jan. 5,” said Freeholder Thomas A. Arnone, liaison to the county’s Department of Public Works and Engineering in a released statement. “The 19-week closure was difficult for motorists, but it was necessary. Today we are pleased to provide residents and commuters with a new bridge that will safely serve their needs for a very long time.”
The opening, the release said, follows the construction of a new 488-foot long steel girder bridge to the north of the existing West Front Street Bridge.
The new bridge is 44-feet wide with two 12-foot travel lanes and four-foot shoulders and six-foot sidewalks in both directions. It also provides roughly nine feet of vertical clearance above mean high water elevation. And there will be about 72 feet of horizontal clearance within the navigable channel of the Swimming River.
Hubbard’s Bridge, as it is known locally, was originally constructed in 1921 as a six span, simply supported, through girder, floor beam, stringer structure 339 feet, 4 inches long, according to county records. The deck was a steel open grid deck. Each span was 55-feet long between bearings. The original substructure consisted of pile supported concrete abutments and piers and wing walls.
Due to the bridge’s age, severe corrosion required that its superstructure be replaced, the release said. This was completed in 2004. A temporary Acrow® panel truss superstructure was erected and substructures were adapted to carry the trusses, it added.
Funding for the replacement bridge was garnered from the NJ Department of Transportation Trust Fund and the Federal Highway Administration. The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority assisted with the project as well.
The contractor for the project is Agate Construction, Inc. of Ocean View, NJ. Inspection and contract administration were performed by Maser Consulting of Red Bank.