Point Pleasant Beach bridge could fail; repairs to start soon

Erik Larsen | Asbury Park Press

Show Caption Hide Caption Danger on Ocean County bridge Ocean County is taking emergency measures to repair the Richard E. Lane Bridge that connects Broadway over Cooks Creek in Point Pleasant Beach, after state inspectors discovered last week that its timber substructure is rotted.

POINT PLEASANT BEACH - A routine state inspection of a heavily trafficked bridge into the town’s tourist district has revealed that its timber substructure has deteriorated “to a point that it’s an emergency that has to be fixed,” Ocean County Freeholder Jack Kelly announced on Wednesday evening.

The Richard E. Lane Bridge that connects Broadway over Cooks Creek will need to undergo repairs to shore up 21 wooden pilings holding up the span — including at least two that have reached “90 percent deterioration,” warned Ocean County Engineer John N. Ernst.

Effective as of last Friday, the county — which owns the bridge — imposed a temporary 3-ton weight limit on vehicles that cross the span until the repairs are completed after the Labor Day weekend. While signs have been posted on all approaches to the bridge, there was no visible enforcement of the limit on Wednesday. Visit the scene yourself in the video above.

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The repairs are expected to cost about $300,000 and will be undertaken by Walker Diving Underwater Construction LLC of Hammonton, Ernst said.

“They’re going to be jacketed,” Ernst said of the rotted pilings. “We’re going to take fiberglass jackets and restore them with concrete and reinforcement inside the fiberglass jackets.”

Ernst described the process at an agenda meeting of the Board of Freeholders on Wednesday. A resolution to award a contract to the underwater construction company will be added to the governing body’s agenda for next Wednesday’s regular meeting.

Given the nature of the emergency, the county government had already sought bids for the project and selected Walker because it “provided the appropriate price,” Ernst said.

The four-lane, east-to-west bridge is about 130 feet in length and was last rehabilitated in 1983, according to county officials. A plaque placed at the center of the span indicates that the bridge was named in 2000 for Richard E. Lane, a former longtime county engineer.

Ernst said engineering consultants hired by the state of New Jersey discovered the structural problems during “a bi-annual inspection of the ‘Broadway Bridge,’” Ernst told the freeholder board.

“The inspector noticed a lot of potential issues with the timber substructure in the waterway,” he said. “So the state authorized them to do an underwater inspection and with their underwater inspection, they determined there were several pilings that were significantly deteriorated — a couple of them up to 90 percent deterioration.”

The inspector then notified the county engineer that signs needed to be posted at the bridge so as to permit only vehicles that weigh a maximum of three tons, which is “basically the limit of a passenger vehicle,” Ernst said.

The state has grouped the issues into “priority one repairs” and “priority two repairs,” with the former to be completed in 30 days and the latter to be completed in three months.

“We’re going to get them all done at once,” Ernst assured the freeholders.

One lane of the bridge will be kept open during the repairs next month, he added.

Cooks Creek — which Ernst said has an average depth of at least 3 to 4 feet at low tide — connects the Manasquan River with Lake Louise.

Erik Larsen: 732-682-9359 or elarsen@gannettnj.com