Monmouth County officials were already discussing replacing the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge when it was damaged during Hurricane Sandy.
(Photo by Rob Spahr / NJ.com)
The Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders plans to spend more than $800,000 to repair damage the Rumson-Sea Bright Bridge sustained during Hurricane Sandy.
Prior to the historic storm, the county’s engineers were already assessing structural deficiencies on the deteriorating bridge, which serves as a critical connection and evacuation route between the two small boroughs over the Shrewsbury River.
According to project information on the county's Web site, routine maintenance can no longer address the bridge's deficiencies, which include:
· Load capacity: The bridge’s design and existing components are overstressed.
· Capacity: The superstructure is in poor physical condition, including moderate to severe corrosion of members, steel section losses, and section loss to rivet heads. Most of the bridge electrical equipment is original and is nearing the end of its serviceable life.
· Highway safety: Parapets, railings, approach guide rails and bridge end treatments do not meet current crash standards.
· Public safety: There is no intercommunication system for local communication, fire alarm system, aircraft warning lights or lighting protection for the control and gate houses.
· Seismic: The bridge is susceptible to seismic forces and does not meet current seismic design standards.
But Freeholder Director John Curley said Hurricane Sandy worsened the bridge’s condition and caused significant erosion along its embankments.
“What we’re going to do is make repairs, similar to what we did with the Oceanic Bridge, to get the erosion problem and some of the other issues under control,” Curley said. “But in the long term, the bridge is going to have to be replaced.”
Curley said the cost of installing a temporary bridge would have been a much greater burden than the cost of simply making repairs to the existing one.
In addition to fixing the erosion issues, the emergency repairs will include reinforcing some of the bridge’s corroded steel pieces, which Curley said would extend the bridge’s lifespan by several years.
But Curley said the county expects to hold a public information session for stakeholders from the communities the bridge serves in January for the purposes of gathering their opinions on a new bridge, including where it should be located and what it should look like.
“A new bridge would take about 24 to 30 months to build, once all of the engineering and planning is completed and the funding is in place,” he said. “But what we have to do immediately is get in there and make the repairs to buy us some time, because the last thing anyone wants is for there to be a bridge collapse in Monmouth County.”