BELVIDERE, NJ – Motorists may encounter brief travel delays during off-peak daytime hours as a repair project gets underway next week at the two-lane, 112-year-old Riverton-Belvidere Toll-Supported Bridge between Northampton County, PA and Warren County, NJ, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission announced today
The repairs are needed, in part, because of added stress caused over the years by overweight truck violations, which occur more frequently at this location than at any of the Commission’s other river crossings.
Entitled the Riverton-Belvidere Toll-Supported Bridge Critical Member Strengthening Project, the undertaking will involve gusset plate connection repairs, repair of lower chord members, and end post repairs. The project will also include slope stabilization improvements along both approaches to the two-lane truss bridge, which connects the Martins Creek-Belvidere Highway in the Riverton section of Lower Mount Bethel Township, PA., with Water Street in the Town of Belvidere, N.J.
To carry out the project, the contractor will regularly reduce the bridge to a single alternating lane of traffic during off-peak daytime hours Monday through Friday on a weekly basis. Traffic at each end of the bridge will be controlled by flaggers during these restricted travel periods.
Alternating traffic patterns are expected to begin as early as Monday, August 22, and continue on an as-needed basis as the repair project progresses over the following three months. Any motorist delays are expected to be minor.
The current steel-truss bridge at this location was constructed in 1904, replacing a previous wooden bridge – the second timber structure at the location – that was washed away in the “Pumpkin Flood” of October 10, 1903. The first wooden bridge at this location was a privately owned covered, wooden structure that opened as a tolled crossing in 1836.
The current bridge has an 8-ton posted weight limit and carried a daily average of 4,400 vehicles last year.
