P lans for the replacement of the Hubbard Bridge that links Red Bank and the River Plaza section of Middletown were discussed at two public meetings last week.
The Monmouth County Engineering Department held the two meetings, one on June 17 at the River Plaza Elementary School in Middletown and the other on June 19 at the Red Bank Senior Center in Red Bank, in conjunction with the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA) and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT).
The purpose of the public information meetings was to discuss replacement alternatives for the span, also designated as CR 10, West Front Street Bridge, S-17.
“We’re looking at a structurally deficient bridge that was the need for the project, which is based on inspections that were done by the county and the county’s consultants that determined the bridge to be structurally deficient,” said Michael Troncone at the Red Bank meeting. Troncone is the project manager for consultant firm French & Parrello.
The new bridge will be built with federal funds and the meetings are required by federal and state regulations.
“The money spent to date all has been federal monies. To date we spent approximately $350,000, and we have money set aside for the final engineering that has already been allocated,” said Monmouth County Engineer Joseph Ettore.
He said that once federal or state funding has been received for a project during the first design stage, the tendency is to continue to give funding to the project and see it through to the end.
Troncone estimated that the final project could end up costing anywhere between $7 to $10 million.
He said the project is currently going through the scoping process, which is a local program through the NJTPA.
“The whole purpose of the scoping process is to do up-front investigations, do data collection, try to establish a footprint grading project, the traffic, wetlands, nature, species and things of that nature,” said Troncone. “Once we get all of our data collection together then we start looking at solutions”
According to Ettore, the last public meeting about the Hubbard Bridge, which is traveled daily by about 20,000 vehicles, was in 2004.
“We’ve come back as a result of the comments we received back then and done some critical investigations in order to clarify the designs; we added some renderings that would be more helpful in giving a better perspective of what the plans might look like,” he said of the renderings that lined the room at the Red Bank Senior Center on Shrewsbury Avenue.
Also taking part in the presentation was Thomas A. Fisher, who is the project manager for consultants Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade & Douglas Inc.
The meeting began with a presentation that included an overview of the project scoping process, a look at the existing conditions and constraints of the bridge, and a list of alternative designs for the structure, which dates to 1921.
After the presentation, members of the audience, which consisted of residents from both the Red Bank and Middletown areas including a few Red Bank Council members, were allowed to ask questions and comment on the plans.
“That [Swimming] river is a natural resource and everything should be done now at this time to see that that resource is enhanced. By making boat traffic a bit easier to get up that river I think that’s a good thing to do,” said William Thorpe of Lincroft. “I would hate to see this bridge not do a job to enhance that river. I think a bit of minor dredging isn’t going to make an awful lot of difference.”
He added, “It’s the only river we’ve got, so let’s take care of it.”
An initially preferred alternative (IPA) was presented at the meetings based on the engineers’ findings during the scoping process.
“The initially preferred alternative places the bridge on a gradual skew, on a curve, and what it also allows us to do is to improve the geometry at this approach. It gets us outside the footprint of the existing bridge for construction,” said Troncone.
He said the IPA would allow for barge access to come from the north during construction and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (DOT) has already signed off on the IPA, pending the outcome of the public information meetings.
“The other benefit of this alternative, in terms of an engineering standpoint, is the fact that the alternative gradually and naturally curves back into the existing road and limits impacts to the adjoining property,” said Troncone.
The IPA would increase the height of the bridge from 8.4 feet to 10 feet; the roadway width would increase from 24 feet curb to curb to 32 feet; 6-foot-wide sidewalks on each side would be added; the length of the bridge would increase by 220 feet from 340 feet to 560 feet; and there would be traffic improvements at the Rector Place and Hubbard Avenue intersections.
“Just don’t try and sell us a bogus argument about how you are going to fix the traffic with different bridges because the trains are always going to come. We aren’t going to get any wider. You are going to have a sidewalk to nowhere on both sides and the tides,” said Margo Lane, of Hubbard Avenue, responding to the proposed improvements to the traffic flow and intersections the engineers presented with the project.
There is currently a temporary prefabricated truss superstructure in place to carry the bridge through the planning and design process as well as maintain traffic while a new bridge is built as well as to maintain traffic while a new bridge is built.
Ettore said the design process, which would last 18 to 24 months, could start at the beginning of 2009. Following this process, he said, the construction could then begin in 2011.
He said if the bridge were to be rebuilt on the existing alignment, it would be closed for 18 to 24 months and traffic would have to be detoured for two miles.
The alternative, which the county prefers, is to rebuild the bridge on another alignment and keep the temporary span for traffic to pass through. This option would cause a two to three month detour of traffic, said Ettore.
“One of the main impacts and disadvantages is the need to acquire some property,” he said. “What we hope is that we’re designing a bridge that aesthetically and functionally provides much better service to the community than does the old bridge or the bridge that is there today.”