Less than a week after its last overnight closing, the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge will again be closed overnight tonight from 8 p.m. to 6 a.m. Thursday, according to signage posted this morning. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
Monmouth County Bridge S-32, better known as a the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge, will be closed overnight from 8 p.m. Thursday to 6 a.m. Friday for regular maintenance to the center bascule, Monmouth County officials announced Wednesday.
Detours will be posted, as the span will be closed to vehicular and pedestrian traffic. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
Monmouth County Bridge S-32, better known as a the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge, is slated for replacement, and the county’s engineering department plans to hold two informational sessions on the Shrewsbury River span’s design next week.
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By JOHN T. WARD
Two hot topics were removed from the Red Bank council agenda Wednesday night:
• a proposed $2 million bond to pay for replacing every residential and business water meter in town
• and possible end to a moratorium on parking fees paid in the past by downtown developers.
The borough-owned water utility would replace every meter in town – more than 3,800 of them – under the proposal. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A plan for a wholesale modernization of Red Bank’s water-metering technology is back, as promised, after getting tabled late last year.
A $2.2 million bond to pay for the replacement of every water meter in town is slated for introduction next week.
The path of the new Hubbards Bridge between Middletown, on the left, and Red Bank is marked in yellow. (Click to enlarge)
Commuters who use the bridge connecting Red Bank and Middletown via West Front Street may want to come up with alternate plans.
Starting today, Monday, Monmouth County plans to subject Hubbard Avenue “and other roads on the Middletown side” of the span to intermittent lane closures between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., the county said in an announcement Monday morning.
The closures are part of the prep work for a four-month closure of the bridge that begins on January 2.
A rendering from 2012 shows the new bridge, now under construction, in red, just to the north of the existing span. (Photo by John T. Ward. Click to enlarge)
This just in from the Monmouth County engineering department Wednesday afternoon:
Beginning tonight, from 10 p.m. until 4 a.m., the bridge on West Front Street over Swimming River will be closed for the delivery and setting of the beams for the new bridge.
A coffer kept contractors dry while working below the surface of the Navesink River at the site of the new Hubbards Bridge under construction between Red Bank and Middletown Monday afternoon. (Photo by Trish Russoniello. Click to enlarge)
A crew with Agate Construction Company wrestled with the challenge of assembling a crane on a tight parcel in Red Bank Tuesday. To see the result, click ‘Read More.’
The crane will be used in the construction of the new Hubbards Bridge over the Swimming River, connecting Red Bank and Middletown via West Front Street. (Photos by Sarah Klepner. Click to enlarge)
The cross atop St. James Church in Red Bank Catholic Church is back after six months of rehabilitation. Among other repairs, the replacement of the old cross, which was damaged by a violent wind storm, should be finished by September, said a church business manager Veronica Alexander. (Photos by Dan Natale. Click to enlarge)
The closure of Seven Bridges Road in Little Silver, which began last July, is nearing its end as Monmouth County wraps up a bridge-replacement project just north of Point Road.
Mayor Bob Neff reported recently that the county has assured town officials that the contractor on the job is working weekends in order to meet the targeted April 15 reopening date. (Click to enlarge)
Borough officials said they would prefer that the new bridge be north of the existing span instead of south. (Photo by Wil Fulton. Click to enlarge)
By WIL FULTON
Sea Bright approved a preliminary design for a new Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge over the Shrewsbury River Tuesday night, even though it’s not one some of them would have preferred.
The proposed span, a drawbridge like the existing 62-year-old structure, would follow a path about 30 feet south of the current bridge, resulting in the demolition of a building that’s home to a Dunkin’ Donuts and a vacant filling station on Ocean Avenue.
A workman adjusts the protective netting on a scaffold surrounding the steeple of Saint James Church on Broad Street in Red Bank Wednesday.
He and his colleagues from Arthur Vincent & Sons Contracting have been at work on the steeple since early January. Among their aims: replacing the cross, which was blown off in an August windstorm, a church official says. (Photos right and below by Dan Natale. Click to enlarge)
A concept plan discussed by Monmouth County Engineer Joe Ettore, in Sea Bright below, shows a proposed new alignment for the bridge and approach. The existing bridge, in white, would be torn down. (Photos by Wil Fulton. Click to enlarge)
By WIL FULTON
Sea Bright residents will face yet another extended bridge closure after the one that’s scheduled to begin next week, but there’s no reason to freak out just yet its still at least eight years away.
Representatives of the Monmouth County Engineering Department were in town Wednesday afternoon to host a public information session designed to offer updates and receive feedback on plans to replace the current Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge over the Shrewsbury River.
According to county Engineer Joseph Ettore, the project is still in its first stage, what the department refers to as concept development, and it will still be roughly 8 to 10 years at least before ground is broken on the new span.
Three months into the rebuilding of a bridge on Seven Bridges Road in Little Silver, a sturdy footbridge has been installed. Previously, pedestrians and bikers, including students at Point Road School, were forced to use a cordoned-off shoulder of the bridge under reconstruction.
The $2.7 million replacement of the timber bridge over Little Silver Creek was anticipated to take six months or more when the Monmouth County engineer launched the project in July. (Click to enlarge)
Matt DePonti, below, reinstalls a bench on Broad Street in Red Bank last Friday after it was refurbished by his employer, Powerhouse Signworks. Seven benches that had been broken and held in storage were rebuilt, and all the others refinished, bringing the total downtown to about 40, said Powerhouse owner Jim Bruno.
Red Bank RiverCenter paid for the work, which cost just $1,000, said executive director Nancy Adams. (Click to enlarge)
A traffic detour, in purple above, is expected to last at least seven months during the replacement of a bridge on Seven Bridges Road, below. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
A bridge-replacement project in Little Silver that’s expected to take up to nine months could jam up a pair of intersections more than a mile away starting in July.
That, in turn, may also reinvigorate a dormant debate over whether those intersections are long overdue for traffic signals, Mayor Bob Neff tells redbankgreen.
Below, dozens of local residents turned out in Sea Bright Monday for a midday presentation of options for dealing with the “serious” condition of the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge. (Click to enlarge)
By STACIE FANELLI
Sixty years old, the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge over the Shrewsbury River is rapidly corroding, inadequate for today’s traffic loads and behind the times on accident safety. Its electrical system is the same one installed in 1952. It’s not up to snuff in terms of earthquake resistance, either.
In a word, Monmouth County engineering officials say, the bridge’s condition is “serious.”
Whether to spend an estimated $10 million to rehabilitate the bridge or some $50 million to replace it was the core question at a pair of public hearings held Monday in Sea Bright and Rumson. More than a dozen county officials and consultants were present at each to kick off a series of discussions aimed, they said, at “building consensus” on a solution.
But some residents of the two towns voiced skepticism that their concerns which include the impacts of a new span on property values on the Rumson side and on the business district in Sea Bright would be given much weight in the process.
“They seem to have it in mind to build a new bridge, and I just don’t want it destroying the neighborhood in the process,” said Tom Calvanico, who lives near the Rumson anchorage.