YARDLEY, PA — The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) today awarded contracts to rehabilitate its 93-year-old Uhlerstown-Frenchtown Toll-Supported Bridge, which connects Frenchtown Borough in Hunterdon County, N.J. with the Uhlerstown section of Tinicum Township in Bucks County, PA.
The project’s construction contract was awarded to low-bidder Anselmi & DeCicco, Inc. of Maplewood, NJ. for a not-to-exceed amount of $22,216,237.00. A separate contract for construction-management/inspections services was awarded to Urban Engineers Incorporated of Cherry Hill, NJ. for a not-to-exceed amount of $1,587,138.62. All project costs ultimately are paid for by the tolls the Commission collects at its eight toll bridges.
The rehabilitation work on the six-span Warren-truss bridge will include a litany of tasks, including – but not limited to – the following:
- Repair various pieces of the bridge’s steel superstructure;
- Clean and repaint all truss sections and underlying bearings;
- Remove the bridge’s current guide rails and install new tubular-steel railings, increasing the bridge’s road deck by seven inches – from 16-feet, six inches to 17 feet, one inch.
- Replace the bridge’s roadway and pedestrian-walkway lighting systems;
- Remove the current concrete-filled steel-grid pedestrian walkway surface and replace it with a wider system of slip-resistant foam-core fiber-reinforced-polymer panels and new pedestrian hand railings;
- Replace concrete-approach-sidewalk sections;
- Repoint stone masonry and make other masonry repairs; and
- Install a programmable color-changing LED lighting system to highlight the bridge’s architectural profile at night.
The rehabilitation project’s field preparations are expected to begin in late January 2025. Travel impacts could begin shortly afterwards. At this time, it’s anticipated that the project will necessitate an uninterrupted partial bridge closure involving a Pennsylvania-bound traffic detour for much of 2025. A variety of occasional overnight full bridge shutdowns also are likely to be needed for some construction activities. And the bridge’s walkway will need to be closed for replacement; the goal is to reopen it in time for Frenchtown’s Riverfest in late summer 2025.
A firm schedule and start date remain undetermined. The contractor must submit its required contract-stipulated documents and, later, an anticipated work schedule. This schedule and related travel impacts could differ from the preliminary designs that were submitted by the project’s design engineers this past June. Various aspects of anticipated project staging also could change. The Commission should be able to provide a start date for project preparations and travel restrictions in mid- to late-January.
Any vehicular traffic detours for the bridge project are expected to involve directing motorists to the Upper Black Eddy-Milford Toll-Supported Bridge, which is 3.3 miles upstream. It is free to cross like the Uhlerstown-Frenchtown Bridge.
The bridge between Frenchtown and the Uhlerstown section of Tinicum Township was last rehabilitated in 2001. The bridge superstructure has a 15-ton weight limit, a 12-foot, 6-inch height restriction, and a 15-MPH speed limit. It carried an average of 4,200 vehicles per day in 2023.
The Commission conducted a public-involvement process earlier this year to inform residents and motorists of the impending project and potential travel impacts during construction. A project webpage was established as part of the public outreach process and can be viewed at https://www.drjtbc.org/project/frenchtownbridge.
The current 950-foot-long Uhlerstown-Frenchtown Bridge opened to traffic on October 10, 1931, 28 years to the day that flood waters washed away two spans of a prior six-span wooden-covered bridge at the same location. The current bridge was constructed by the former F.H. Clement & Co. of Bethlehem, PA. Published accounts from the time indicate that four surviving spans of the prior wooden bridge and two post-1903-flood steel truss replacement spans were shut down on May 6, 1931 for removal and subsequent construction of the current bridge.
The crossing was owned jointly by New Jersey and Pennsylvania until July 1, 1987, when the structure and corresponding real estate were conveyed to the DRJTBC. The Commission uses a share of toll proceeds collected at its eight toll bridges to operate and maintain the bridge and eleven other aging “toll-supported” bridges along the river.
