The closure of Seven Bridges Road in Little Silver, which began last July, is nearing its end as Monmouth County wraps up a bridge-replacement project just north of Point Road.
Mayor Bob Neff reported recently that the county has assured town officials that the contractor on the job is working weekends in order to meet the targeted April 15 reopening date. (Click to enlarge)
A map showing the overlay detours that take effect with the reopening of Little Silver schools on Thursday. (Click to enlarge)
By JOHN T. WARD
Drivers who ignore a widely flouted construction detour may be in for trouble starting Thursday morning, when Little Silver police plan to impose a second set of part-time detours in conjunction with the reopening of the borough’s two schools, authorities said.
The two-month-old shutdown of Seven Bridges Road, though frequently ignored by motorists, has already exacerbated traffic woes at key bottlenecks around town, as well as in the central business district, police Chief Dan Shaffery tells redbankgreen.
Now, in an effort to ensure the safety of children entering and leaving the Little Silver Point Road School, officials plan to implement an additional set of detours in the morning and afternoon and those changes are apt to cause frustration among parents over the first few days of the school year, Shaffery acknowledges.
“The hardest part will be relying on people to follow the detour route, especially on Seven Bridges,” Shaffery said. “It should have been followed from the beginning, but it wasn’t.”
Volunteer firefighters in Little Silver made quick work of a residential basement fire Monday night.
No injuries were reported as a result of the fire, reported at about 11 p.m., at 31 Little Silver Point Road, said Fire Chief James Jiminaro.
Contrary to a report on a commercial pager alert system that firefighters were attempting to rescue someone from the unfinished cellar, no one was in the basement at the time, Jiminaro tells redbankgreen.