Public Updated on Two Ocean City Bridge Projects; State Funding May Have Impact

OCEAN CITY – Residents and interested users of this resort’s bridges learned what’s in store for the long-awaited improvement of the Roosevelt Boulevard (34th Street) Bridge deck and the new 17th Street Bridge in a town hall-style briefing July 18 at the Community Library. 
Representatives of Greenman-Pedersen, Inc., Cape May County’s designer for the Roosevelt Boulevard Bridge project, as well as representatives from French and Parrello Associates for the 17th Street Bridge, joined County Engineer Dale Foster, to give details about the project and answer questions.
Foster said at the outset of the presentation “In the past, each municipality was responsible for its bridges, but for many years, any bridge over five feet in length is the responsibility of the county.”
Roosevelt Bridge Repairs
Over the years, numerous patchwork repairs have been done to keep the county’s busiest bridge operational. Thirteen of the 31 spans of the bridge are scheduled to have reinforced concrete bridge deck completely replaced from curb to curb. Most of those spans are at the Ocean City or eastern end.
Of concern to motorists is that the deck work will require closing one bridge lane with the other lane used to handle traffic on an alternating basis through a temporary portable traffic signal.
Construction and repairs will start immediately after Columbus Day Weekend of this year and continue until the first weekend of May 2017. Foster noted that the contractor might need to close lanes early, i.e. in September and early October, to prepare for the construction.
After a break for the crush of traffic in summer 2017, work will resume that fall and finish in May 2018.
Work will be at least eight hours a day and could continue through the weekends, stated Foster.
According to the explanation given by the design engineers, they are breaking the project into four phases to minimize inconvenience and duration of the lane closings.
Each phase will work half of the length of the bridge in a closed lane. For anyone who has used the Roosevelt Boulevard Bridge in other than dead winter, and even then, any closing of either of the bridge lanes results in severe congestion, sometimes for miles.
Many residents pushed for a bike lane along the repaired bridge, similar to the showcase walkway on the Ninth Street Bridge in Ocean City, but the county rejected the idea because of its $8 million cost.
Damaged deck portions will be taken out in pieces, and new decks will be of high-performance concrete with epoxy-coated reinforced steel that will be more resistant to saltwater and wind erosion than older materials previously used.
County funds will be used to pay for the bulk of the $8 million total of the project. The project also is being funded in part with $1 million from the NJ Transportation Trust Fund.
That fund as has been extensively reported has become a political football under the Christie administration. Christie ordered the freeze on state construction projects after the Senate did not vote on proposed legislation to raise the state’s gas tax to prop up the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF).
“How the TTF problem will impact these bridge projects is a great question. It’s not like road projects which can be temporarily halted because of this impasse. We only have a small window of available time to do the bridges because of the summer crush of traffic and we can’t re-route this traffic elsewhere,” said Foster.
He added that he is talking to the County Freeholders to discuss going forward with awarding the projects and even starting them without the TTF contributions since “there definitely is a compelling argument not to delay.” 
17th Street Bridge
Foster explained that the 17th Street Bridge would be of pre-cast concrete and about 20 feet long. The bridge crosses a culvert that connects lagoons on either side of the street.
The new span will include a pedestrian sidewalk on either side which will replace the deteriorated lumber walkways adjacent to the existing span. 
This project is scheduled to conclude May 2017 at a cost of $2 million of which $1 million is county funding, and the other $1 million is to come from the TTF.
This bridge connects Bay Avenue with a small island having 114 homes. The design engineer team said that they initially requested a 25 mph speed limit over the bridge during construction but that the final traverse speed will now be set at 15 mph.
“Among other things, there could have been easier procedures absent NJ DEP (Dept. of Environmental Protection) permits which require us, for example, to maintain stream flows even though it’s a lagoon,” said a member of the team.
It was further clarified in answer to a resident’s question that most of the bridge would be pre-formed with the bridge parapet and header cast in place and even stained (probably limestone color tone) in place for consistency.  
In conclusion, Foster noted that bids for both projects were advertised, and contracts were set to be awarded in August. However, if state legislators do not arrive at an agreement by then, the county will have to delay awarding contracts which could cause scheduling delays.
To contact Camille Sailer, email csailer@cmcherald.com.