The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission has announced that work will begin Monday on a four-month-long road surface repair project at the Scudder Falls (I-95) bridge.
The project will address full and partial depth repairs along designated portions of the bridge’s deck where pothole patching has become increasingly ineffective or impractical.
The goal of the project is to put the bridge’s weathered and pothole-ridden road deck in a sufficient state of condition so it may continue in service long enough to allow for construction of a new and improved replacement bridge in the coming years.
Because the current bridge corridor frequently is choked during peak commuter traffic periods, construction activities for the upcoming road surface repair project are restricted to non-peak driving periods in each respective direction along I-95. As a result, northbound travel across the bridge may be restricted a single lane from 10 a.m. to 5 a.m. weekdays. Likewise, southbound travel may be restricted to a single lane from 8 p.m. to 1 p.m. weekdays. The contractor also may utilize single-lane travel restrictions in each direction across the bridge at any time on weekends when traffic volumes are lower.
The project contractor has chosen to kick off the repair work in the southbound direction, starting 2 a.m. Monday.
“A major objective with this project is to get the repairs done without causing additional delays for peak-period job commuters,” said Joseph J. Resta, the bridge commission’s executive director. “Barring unforeseen circumstances, traffic impacts should be minimized by limiting work to off-peak travel times.”
Mr. Resta said the upcoming road surface repair project at the bridge should not be confused with the significantly more substantial Scudder Falls bridge replacement project that has been in the works for the last several years.
“The road deck repairs are a stopgap measure that will provide us sufficient time to design, finance and construct a new replacement bridge at this location,” Mr. Resta said. “The project that is about to begin will cost less than a million dollars and take only a few months to complete. By contrast, the replacement bridge project will cost hundreds of millions of dollars and take at least three years to complete.”
The project will consist of the following:
Repairs to designated areas of the deck where the maximum depth of the concrete road bed extends down to the bottom web of reinforcement bars (rebar).
Repairs to designated areas of the deck where deteriorated concrete extends the full depth of the deck, including overhang areas.
Cleaning of tooth expansion joints along the road deck.
After completing the initial deck repairs, the project contractor will remain on call for two years to make any subsequent deck repairs that may become needed.
The construction contract for the upcoming road surface repair project was awarded in May to Sparwick Contracting Inc. of New Jersey, which submitted the low bid of $916,696.
As for the more-far-reaching Scudder Falls bridge replacement project, that undertaking entered the final design phase in early March. Current preparatory work includes topographical base mapping, staking out ground boring locations, field verification and surveys of existing utilities in the project area, field visits to Park Island for a survey of river turtles and other miscellaneous field visits by the project’s final design consultant — Michael Baker Jr. Inc., a subsidiary of Michael Baker International.
Final design work for the project is expected to take approximately 15 more months to complete. The commission then would move to put the project’s construction out to bid.
It’s anticipated full construction activities will get underway in early 2017.The project is expected to take three to four years to complete.
More precise construction start and end dates will be established toward the end of the final design.
The project involves a heavily commuted 4.4-mile portion of the I-95 corridor extending from the Route 332-Yardley-Newtown Road exit in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and the Bear Tavern Road-Route 579 exit in Mercer County, New Jersey.
- The congestion-prone highway segment is a choke point for job-commuter traffic between Bucks County and Central Jersey. The nearly 55-year-old bridge and nearby interchanges are classified as functionally obsolete.