HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP: Officials OK county’s bridge plan

Jacobs Creek Bridge to go to Alliger Park

By John Tredrea, Staff Writer
   On Monday, the Hopewell Township Committee endorsed, but with reluctance, Mercer County’s plan to replace the Jacobs Creek Bridge with a modern structure.
   The county plan calls for moving the existing bridge, well over 100 years old, to the Alliger tract, a 160-plus acre parcel of open space near the township Public Works building.
   On the Alliger tract, which is permanently deed-restricted against development and open to the public, the historic steel truss bridge would give pedestrians, cyclists and horseback riders a means to cross Woolsey Creek.
   History buffs have been trying for decades to save the old bridge, while county engineering officials have been saying the structure is not adequate to handle the demands of modern traffic. The bridge has a 3-ton weight limit.
   ”We routinely see violations of that limit,” township Administrator/Engineer Paul Pogorzelski said Monday.
   Mayor Vanessa Sandom called removal of the existing bridge “heartbreaking.”
   Committeeman David Sandahl prefaced his vote endorsing the county plan by saying he cast that vote “with reluctance.”
   Mr. Pogorzelski said township and county officials investigated thoroughly the issue of restoring the existing bridge.
   ”In order to modify the bridge sufficiently to make it safe, you would have to obliterate the historic nature of it,” he said.
   Mayor Sandon and other officials have said federal economic stimulus money may pay for the bridge project.
   As part of the project, the county is investigating speed limit reductions and traffic calming measures in the vicinity of the bridge, which is on Bear Tavern Road (Route 579) near Maddock and Jacobs Creek roads. The county has jurisdiction over the bridge because it is on a county road.