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.

The detour involves the installation of a temporary light at Branch Avenue and White Road, above, and another at Branch and Rumson Road. (Click to enlarge)

The replacement of a small, timber bridge on Seven Bridges Road just north of the Little Silver Point Road intersection is scheduled to begin shortly after the July 4 holiday, officials said. A concrete span with 12-foot lanes, three-foot shoulders and a six-foot pedestrian walkway on the westerly side will be installed in the $2.7 million project.

The work, originally scheduled to begin in 2008, has been repeatedly delayed.

Neff said that as part of the traffic-control portion of the project, the county will install temporary traffic lights at two locations on Branch Avenue: at the intersection of White Road, and at the intersection of Rumson Road, just yards away. That’s to accommodate an expected increase in volume caused by the closure of Seven Bridges at its northern (Rumson Road) and southern (Silverwhite Avenue) ends, as well as at the eastern ends of Kings Road and Point Road.

Residents whose homes can only be accessed via Seven Bridges will be permitted to bypass closure signs, but the bridge will remained closed to all but pedestrian and bike traffic for most of the duration.

But the installation of the lights prompts the question: why not make them permanent?

That turns out to be a live wire line of inquiry, said Neff. Hearings on the bridge “before my time on the council” some six years ago stirred up passions pro and con, he said.

The borough “held huge hearings, well-attended enough that one had to be moved to the Markham Place School,” he said.

And then, as he expects today, “you had people who want no traffic lights, people who had wanted traffic lights for years before this project came up, and people in the middle. The conclusion was the best way to do it was to go with temporary lights.”

Now, he said, “this discussion has started again: should we make these lights permanent?”

One one side are commuters who lament the difficulty of making left turns off Rumson and White roads, backing up vehicles on each at rush hours. On the other are those who see the lights as unnecessary and likely to adversely impact property values near the intersections.

The temporary lights should be a good test of whether the signals should become permanent, Neff said.

“Perhaps the use of the temporary lights will give us some idea of whether they might be workable,” he said, though the detour may be seem as exaggerating the extent of the problem, he notes.

In any event, the question of permanent signals “is a county issue, because it’s a county road,” he said of Branch.

Officials from the Monmouth County Engineer’s office could not be reached for comment.

Little Silver has asked the county to install the temporary lights during late-night hours to prevent further traffic congestion and to minimize the number of police officers required to direct traffic, Neff said.

By JOHN T. WARD

For George Sheehan Classic organizer Phil Hinck, the annual Red Bank running event is really several races in one.

The foremost is the one in which hundreds of runners, walkers and wheelchair users strive to cross the finish line on Broad Street in as little time as possible.

But well before that race, there’s the pressure to prop up the number of runners, which has been in gradual decline since the event moved to the borough from Asbury Park in 1994.

And then there’s the race against the clock to break down the street barriers and timing equipment to get out of the way of downtown merchants opening for Saturday morning business.

Now, in the biggest change to the event in years, Hinck and the race committee have decided to shorten the main race to a five-kilometer event, from five miles, a move that they hope will juice attendance and expedite post-race clean-up.

Sheehan Classic organizer Phil Hinck in 2009. (Click to enlarge)

Hinck said that starting with the June 16 event, the race will no longer include the nearly two-mile stretch that took place in Fair Haven. Instead, it will follow its traditional course from downtown Red Bank into Little Silver. But instead of heading east on Harding Road into Fair Haven and back, it will turn west on Harding from Prospect Avenue, directly up the dreaded Tower Hill, and on to its customary finish.

“I know they’re happy about it in Fair Haven,” Hinck tells redbankgreen, adding that residents of the Alderbook community in Little Silver, with a single access point on Harding, will also no longer be “trapped” in their development by the road closure.

The race, named for longtime Rumson resident and Red Bank physician Dr. George Sheehan, who popularized the sport through books and newspaper columns, was launched in Asbury Park in 1981 and relocated to Red Bank in 1994, when it was shortened from a 6.2-miler to a 5-miler.

The latest curtailment, Hinck said, is a reflection of runner preferences for either short runs or longer one, such as marathons and half-marathons. Five-mile races have fallen out of popularity, he said, noting that Rumson’s traditional five-miler is going to a 5K this year. Summer heat and humidity are factors, too, he said.

“Last year, there were good conditions, but there were only 1,500 runners,” he said. “We used to get 3,000.”

Hinck said the edited course will mean cost savings in terms of police protection, but it’s unclear if it will translate into lower entry fees, which ranged as high as $35 for late arrivers.

“We’re still working on that,” he said. The decision will rest on the level of corporate sponsorships, he said.

The shorter course should also translate into earlier postrace breaktown time. Hinck said he still hears complaints from some merchants that the race disrupts their business, but “we really hustle to get the streets open by 9:30 or 9:45,” before most shops are open.

“Every year it’s gotten better,” and the quicker race can be expected to shave a large block of time off the earliest street reopening, he said.

The decision to shorten the race, though, was a tough one, Hinck said.

“The hardcore runners don’t want to see these distances go away,” he said.

Registration opens March 15.

By JOHN T. WARD

Monmouth County officials say they have solved the daunting sidewalk-to-nowhere conundrum they faced in designing a new bridge to connect Red Bank and Middletown at West Front Street.

The fix? Create a walk-and-bike path that will bypass the narrow rail trestle on the Red Bank side, Monmouth County Engineer Joe Ettore said Wednesday.

In what was billed as a preview of a fuller public presentation to come in the spring, Monmouth County Engineer Joe Ettore told Red Bank’s mayor and council that the revised plan for the new Hubbards Bridge also calls for a construction timetable that will detour traffic around the span for just three or four months of the projected 18-to-24-month buildout.

And when it’s all done, the borough will end up with a new parcel of green space overlooking the upper Navesink River, he said.

The new span, scheduled to go out for bid to contractors in the fall, is to replace a “temporary” steel span installed a decade ago, which is to be re-used elsewhere, Ettore said. Construction is expected to begin in early 2013, with at least one lane of the existing bridge remaining open, except for about four months toward the end of the project, when traffic will be routed to the nearby Cooper’s Bridge on Route 35.

That’s possible, he said, because the new bridge, while anchoring in the same places as the existing one, will be built slightly north of the current span.

The job is expected to cost in the vicinity of $12 million, and will be paid for completely by federal funding, Ettore said.

Ettore’s presentation was an update on one he gave in September, 2009, covered here by redbankgreen. That plan remains in effect, but with some new features.

• As previously proposed, the new two-lane bridge will have four-foot-wide shoulders and six-foot sidewalks on both sides. But under the former plan, the southern sidewalk was to have come to an abrupt end on the Red Bank side, because the narrowness of the train trestle there prohibited it from continuing to Shrewsbury Avenue. That would have forced walkers and bikers to cross the heavily trafficked bridge itself.

The solution, Ettore said, is for the county to acquire a strip of land adjoining the New Jersey Transit rail line from Red Bank Marina for the creation of a stepped series of ramps leading up to the railroad grade crossing on Shrewsbury Avenue. The ramps will comply with Americans with Disabilities Act standards for accessibility, he said.

“The biggest challenge is the grade,” he told reporters afterward. The sloping ramps will be interspersed with stretches of landing, he said.

The county hopes to acquire the land through negotiation from the marina’s owner. “He’s, unfortunately, severely impacted” by the project, Ettore said.

• Because a retaining wall alongside a residential property at the northwest corner of West Front and Rector Place was causing sight-line issues, the county has already acquired that property and plans to demolish the house there, Ettore said. The retaining wall will be removed and the property will be regraded to eliminate the issues, he said.

“The ability of the county to acquire that, we feel, is going to be a huge benefit to the 17,500 vehicles that cross that bridge every day,” he said.

When the project is completed, the parcel, less than a half acre in size, which has access to the riverfront beneath an adjoining rail bridge, will be deeded over to the borough for use as open space, Ettore said.

• The full closure of the existing span is expected to occur in early 2014, after the Christmas holidays of 2013, and in expectation of the bridge reopening before the start of the summer season, Ettore told the council. Afterward, he acknowledged to reporters that such a timetable would require the job to be completed in 18 months or less, rather than 24, and said the county was shooting for a closure period between February and April of 2014.

A public review session, with full construction drawing and a question-and-answer session, will be held, possibly at borough hall, sometime in April, Ettore said.

Elected officials praised the plan, and Ettore’s office for working with borough officials and keeping them apprised of changes. Mayor Pasquale Menna was effusive in thanking Ettore for minimizing the shutdown period, for his concern about green space, and for the architecture of the bridge, which will pick up on the brick and antique lamppost elements used by the state on the Cooper’s Bridge.

Councilman Mike DuPont said the plan “seems to promote not only transportation, but to create some pedestrian walkways and bikeways, with access to and from the river.”

By JOHN T. WARD

A new bridge to replace the Route 520 span between Rumson and Sea Bright is among the options on the table for review and discussion next Monday.

Monmouth County officials plan to hold two public information sessions that day to get input on whether to rehabilitate or replace the bascule span over the Shrewsbury River.

Here’s an announcement from the county:

On Monday, Feb. 27, Monmouth County will hold two public meetings about the status of the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge (S-32) over the Shrewsbury River between Rumson and Sea Bright:

• A daytime meeting will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Sea Bright Municipal Building public meeting room at 1167 Ocean Ave. in Sea Bright. A brief presentation will be held at 2 p.m.
• An evening meeting will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Rumson Municipal Building public meeting room at 80 E. River Rd. in Rumson. A brief presentation will be held at 7 p.m.

“The bridge that connects Sea Bright and Rumson is being evaluated for possible rehabilitation or replacement,” Freeholder Deputy Director Thomas A. Arnone said. “Citizen participation at these meetings will be helpful in developing a detailed evaluation of this bridge and allow the county to outline the options under consideration.”

Both meetings will be conducted in an “open house” format where display boards will provide information about the current bridge. Representatives from the Monmouth County Division of Engineering will be on hand to answer questions and to explain the evaluation process to residents, local officials and the business community.

“These meetings are part of a local concept development study,” said county Engineer Joseph Ettore. “This is the beginning of a detailed process to determine if the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge should be rehabilitated, replaced or kept as is.”

For those unable to attend and provide comment at the meetings, the county will accept written comments through March 28, 2012.

Written comments should be sent by email to engineer@co.monmouth.nj.us, by fax to 732-431-7765 or by mail to Inkyung Englehart, Project Coordinator, Monmouth County Department of Public Works, Division of Engineering, Hall of Records Annex, 1 East Main St, 3rd Floor, Freehold, NJ  07728. A downloadable comment form and project information is posted on the Public Works and Engineering section of the county Web site at www.visitmonmouth.com

By JOHN T. WARD

Fingers crossed, but so far, the repair job on the Oceanic Bridge over the Navesink River between Middletown and Rumson is going like clockwork, thanks to relatively mild winter weather.

Monmouth County officials said the bridge, closed since October, is on schedule to reopen in time for the start of the summer season Memorial Day weekend.

“They’ve been fortunate with the weather,” said Rumson Mayor John Ekdahl.

The work is focused on the 100-foot-long steel bascule portion of the 2,700-foot-long span – the county’s longest – that opens for marine traffic.  Work crews have been removing, repairing and replacing everything from giant support beams to the machinery that opens the bridge to the catwalks.

From an announcement by the county press office:

During the second full month of the closure, the contractor removed and replaced two major floor beams on the north leaf of the bascule span and reinforced the east and west girders. The contractor also completed the installation of a temporary platform on the south leaf’s bascule in preparation of rehabilitation of that span.

On the north leaf, approximately 95 percent of the existing components have been cleaned and primed; some areas have also been painted. Painting work has been stopped for the winter and will resume when structural repairs, stringer and grating deck installation are completed. During the cleaning process, 10 55-gallon drums of rust and paint chips were removed from the north and south spans. Mechanical work to various components of bridge machinery continues to be repaired off-site.

“This project is continuing on schedule,” [Freeholder John] Arnone said. “This winter, so far, has been relatively mild so that work crews have been able to keep working schedule and we are proceeding toward an on-time re-opening prior to Memorial Day weekend.”

The repairs are expected to extend the life of the bridge, built in 1939, by about eight years. In the interim, plans for a replacement structure, which may include a controversial fixed-span bridge 65 feet above the river, are in the works.

TEXT

By JOHN T. WARD

Red Bank’s West Side appears about to experience a tsunami of new development, if land-use approvals granted by the town are used in the near future.

That’s a big if. The ailing economy has stalled development projects across the U.S., and Red Bank has not been spared.

But a large housing project planned for Monmouth Street near the train station, and two others just blocks away on Bridge –  one of them mixed in with stores and a brew pub – have business owners in the vicinity concerned about a severe parking crunch. And led by a restaurateur, they’ve asked the borough to be proactive in minimizing the adverse impact.

The West Side Lofts project will have its own parking garage, but won variances for an overall parking shortage. (Click to enlarge)

After years as an eyesore lot, and several aborted attempts at development, a property owned by Amboy Bank on Monmouth Street at West Street was cleared of vacant buildings in August, though construction has not yet begun. The bank has pledged to see through to completion the planned Courtyards at Monmouth project on the site.

At the corner of Monmouth and Bridge, the former Anderson Brothers cold storage facility is nearing the start of work that will transform it into 23 condos and two street-level stores, according to Metrovation principal Chris Cole. A lawsuit had iced the project, and by the time the case was resolved in the developer’s favor, the economy had soured.

The same lawsuit delayed a second Metrovation project, the MW West Side Lofts , which last month won revised-plan approvals for 92 luxury rental apartments as well as street-level retail units, live-and-work artists’ spaces, and a Triumph Brewing Company restaurant.

Throw in the newly opened JBJ Soul Kitchen restaurant on Monmouth Street opposite the Anderson building, and you’ve got the potential for too many cars chasing too few parking spaces, says Danny Murphy, of Danny’s Grill & Wine Bar.

The lofts project is to be built in a horseshoe around Danny’s.

So, armed with large maps and aerial photos, Murphy led a contingent that included representatives of the Two River Theater and the Galleria at Red Bank to last week’s meeting of the borough council to ask that the town get a jump on the issue.

“We need to act now,” Murphy told the council. “In two years, the West Side Lofts open, and we’re going to have hundreds of people coming to the theater and restaurants who don’t know where to go” to park.

Murphy said a ballpark estimate of the parking shortfall was about 150 spaces.

He suggested painting lines on the asphalt designating parking spots along Bridge Avenue, which he said would allow for more cars than at present. He also suggested that the borough consider making a deal with New Jersey Transit for nighttime parking – with improved security lighting – at the train station, and consider buying a lot on Shrewsbury Avenue abutting the railroad tracks for a parking lot.

The property, formerly home to a rental car business, is for sale at $1.9 million, he said.

“There are a lot of different solutions to this problem,” Murphy said. “If we don’t deal with it, it’s going to be a monster.”

First, though, he said, the town has to eliminate the “perception problem” that Red Bank has a parking problem downtown by improving signage pointing visitors to the underutilized East Side lots.

The idea of buying property for parking appeared to be a non-starter with the governing body, but Mayor Pasquale Menna and others praised Murphy’s emphasis on taking a proactive approach.

“Your timing is perfect, to be out in front of this now,” said Councilman Ed Zipprich.

Menna said he would move quickly to appoint a task force of business owners, government officials and others to explore solutions on the West Side.

Meantime, Nancy Adams, executive director of the downtown promotion agency RiverCenter, said that so-called “wayfinding” signs have been ordered for installation downtown.

A partial road closure that’s expected to last through December took effect with the start of work on a gas line beneath Seven Bridge Road in Little Silver Monday morning.

The road will be closed daily from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. from Rumson Road to Little Silver Point Road, though vehicles will be permitted to travel south along that stretch until 8:15 a.m., according to borough police. (Click to enlarge)

The Oceanic Bridge will get a new drawbridge, replacing a 72-year-old segment that’s heavily corroded, officials say. (Click to enlarge)

By JOHN T. WARD

Work to replace the steel drawbridge portion of the Oceanic Bridge is slated to get underway Monday with detours that are expected to frustrate motorists from Middletown and Rumson for seven months.

Monmouth County officials say they hope to complete the replacement of the two-leaf bascule center of the 2,700-foot-long span – the county’s longest – by Memorial Day next year.

In the interim, however, the bridge will be closed. Off limits. Out of commission.

For some motorists, that will mean miles-long detours to the nearest waterway crossings at the Cooper Bridge  between Middletown and Red Bank; the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge; and the new Captain Joe Azzolina Bridge between Highlands and Sea Bright.

And for owners of businesses that rely on bridge traffic, it’s expected to hit the cash register.

The timing of the project was selected to minimize the adverse economic impact, which would be worse with a summer closing, county officials say.

Steve Bidgood of the Salt Creek Grille and Donnie Woodham, manager of Rumson Wine & Spirits, say they expect a drop in business. But each is being proactive in an effort to offset the impact.

Salt Creek, which gets an estimated 15 percent of its business from the north side of the Navesink River, is planning to do three waves of mailings to addresses there offering discounted dinners. The restaurant, located at the Rumson anchorage of the bridge, has also posted alternate directions on its website for patrons to share with their guests.

The liquor store, meanwhile, is emphasizing its delivery service, and will try to gang up deliveries that go to the other side of the river, Woodham said.

“We won’t deliver a six pack and a pack of smokes, but most of our customers order wine or liquor by the case,” he said.

Woodham and Bidgood said that, like many of their customers, they are accepting of the inconvenience the job will create.

“It is what it is,” Woodham said.

The bascule replacement “will give us another seven or eight years” of useful life before the entire bridge is expected to need replacing, said Bidgood. “Repairing it is important.”

Bidgood said he’s been assured that the construction timetable has about eight weeks of bad-weather provisions included, and that the contractor on the project will be working under incentives to finish it early and penalties for tardiness.

Woodham, though, is dubious that the job will be wrapped up before the start of summer. “As long as it’s ready by Fourth of July, I’ll be happy,” he tells redbankgreen.

Here’s a video of county Engineer Joe Ettore and Freeholder John Curley being interviewed about the plan.