Beginning next Monday, or thereabouts, Hubbard’s Bridge between Red Bank and Middletown will be closed to traffic for four months as a new span, at left above, is completed, Monmouth County officials said this week. The existing steel structure, right, installed as a temporary fix a decade ago, will be dismantled for future use elsewhere, officials have said. (Click to enlarge)
See detour information and bridge factoids below, courtesy of Monmouth County (except for the cheeky last one).Â
Yellow markings show the path of the new bridge relative to the existing structure. Middletown is at left, Red Bank at right. (Click to enlarge)
DETOURS
• Westbound traffic on West Front Street in Red Bank will be directed north on Rector Place to State Hwy 35 and across Coopers Bridge and then onto Navesink River Road to Hubbard Avenue.
• Eastbound traffic from West Front Street in Middletown will be directed north on Hubbard Avenue to Navesink River Road to State Hwy 35 and across Coopers Bridge to Rector Place.
FACTOIDS
• The purpose of the closure is to enable contractors to tie-in the two ends of the new span, which has been under construction since August, 2013, to the anchorages on the Middletown and Red Bank sides.
• Pedestrian access across the bridge will be maintained throughout the closure. Bicyclists must dismount and walk their bicycle across the bridge.
• The new bridge will be 480 feet long and 44 feet wide, featuring two 12-foot travel lanes for motor vehicles, plus four-foot shoulders and six-foot sidewalks in both directions.
• The new bridge will provide approximately nine feet of vertical clearance above mean high water elevation. There will be approximately 72 feet of horizontal clearance within the navigable channel of the Swimming River where it meets the Navesink.
• Architectural elements of the new span include ornamental lights and a decorative, recessed-brick panel parapet with a decorative ball-and cap-railing. The look will complement the nearby Route 35 Bridge, known locally as Coopers Bridge.
• Other improvements include minor roadway widening on the bridge approaches, improved storm water drainage, highway lighting and new guide-rail treatments.
• On completion, the bridge’s concrete sidewalks will provide an ADA accessible route from Hubbard Avenue in Middletown to Rector Place/Shrewsbury Avenue in Red Bank.
• Hubbard’s Bridge, as it is known locally, was originally constructed in 1921 as a “six-span, simply supported, through-girder, floor beam, stringer structure” 339 feet, 4 inches long. The deck was a steel open-grid deck.
• The existing “temporary” steel deck was installed in 2004. It will be dismantled for reuse.
• The bridge contractor, Agate Construction of Ocean View, is on track to complete the opening of the new bridge to traffic by May 17, 2015.
• The budgeted cost was $12 million, which is to be fully paid for with federal funding.
• An average of 21,000 vehicles cross the bridge daily.
• Some of them have a harder time of it than others.
