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Massive Jersey City-Kearny Bridge to Open in Spring

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Construction of the new Hackensack River bridge linking Jersey City and Kearny via Rt. 7 has taken a big step forward with the recent long-awaited installation of the lift span deck.

The new structure, which will replace the existing 90-year-old Wittpenn Bridge, was supposed to begin taking traffic last year, but a harsh winter in 2018 and additional time needed to put in place mechanisms to raise the bridge caused delays, according to the state Department of Transportation.

The main approaches to the bridge are from Routes 1&9 in Jersey City and Route 7 in Kearny. These approaches are complete, so once the lift span portion of the bridge is finished, the bridge can open to traffic.

According to DOT spokesman Stephen Schapiro, that should happen by Spring 2021.

Once traffic is on the new bridge, Schapiro added, workers will finish construction of a new exit ramp to Newark Avenue in Jersey City. Improvements to the Fish House Road interchange in Kearny will also be completed.”

The deck, considered “orthotropic,” is made of structural steel plate stiffened in longitudinal and transverse directions, which enhances the plate’s bending resistance to more efficiently bear wheel loads and distribute those loads to main girders.

This type of deck structure is much lighter than the concrete slab used in a more conventional girder bridge. It’s more costly to fabricate because of the amount of welding involved.

Although this project marks the initial use of this type of deck in New Jersey, orthotropic decks can be found elsewhere around the U.S., mainly in California, and in other countries. San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge, open since 1937, had its original concrete deck replaced with lighter, stronger orthotropic steel deck panels between 1982 and 1986.

For the Wittpenn project, the contractor—CCA Civil, Inc., of Jersey City—shipped the steel in several panel sections from the Pacific Northwest south toward Mexico and Central America, through the Panama Canal, and up the Caribbean to the U.S.

The panels arrived in 2017. Since their arrival, they have sat in a barge moored in the Hackensack River at CCA’s expense.

It took three days at the end of last month for a crane barge, which Schapiro described as one of the largest in the U.S., to lift the three sections of the deck and position them, aided in its movements by tugboats.

Once the three deck sections are connected, railings and sidewalks will be installed, the cables will be attached, and the machinery and electrical work, including the control house, needs to be completed.”

Before opening to traffic, the lift span will undergo testing to make sure it moves properly. Once testing is completed and the bridge has opened, the existing Wittpenn Bridge will be demolished.

The entire job is now projected for completion by fall 2022 or early spring 2023.

The overall cost of the project, which began in November 2011, has risen by about 5%, from the $473.4 million budgeted for the five contracts awarded by DOT, combined, to $495.8 million, “mostly related to additional utility work and ground improvements needed for foundation work,” Schapiro said.

Photos provided by Department of Transportation

A previous version of this story incorrectly named George Harms Construction of Howell, NJ as the project’s contractor.

 

 

New Wittpenn Bridge On Route 7 to Open in 2021

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Ever caught waiting in traffic on Route 7 for a boat to pass under Wittpenn Bridge? Next year you’ll wait less often.

Construction on the bridge—named for former Jersey City Mayor H. Otto Wittpenn—should conclude in 2022, according to the New Jersey Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project. The new Wittpenn Bridge will open to traffic as early as 2021.

Head west along St. Paul’s Avenue to the bottom of the hill, execute a few winding turns, and there it is—a sprawling, multi-acre construction site filled with dirt, heavy equipment, workers, and plenty of infrastructure.

In November 2011, work began on the replacement of the bridge linking Jersey City and Kearny over the Hackensack River, along with new approach ramps and the realignment of Fish House Road—primarily a truck route serving industries on the west side of the river.

The new bridge will rise just north of the existing vertical lift bridge, which will then be demolished.

West Tower. Photo by NJ Department of Transportation

Weakened by the increased weight and speed of vehicles over time, the 90-year-old, 2,169-foot-long bridge has been renovated four times between 1953 and 1992, at costs totaling $13.5 million. Nonetheless, it has been rated “structurally deficient and in an advanced state of deterioration” by federal highway engineers.

It was built in less than two years at a cost of $3 million.

By contrast the new bridge, ramps, right-of-way acquisition, utility relocation, and reconfiguration of Fish House Road—the entire cost of which was initially pegged at $317,400,000 in 2002—is now estimated to be completed in 2022 at a cost to federal taxpayers of $493.2 million according to the NJDOT.

In December 2019, NJDOT spokesman Schapiro told NJ.com the delay was due to “… more challenging work to install the machinery, cables and counterweights needed to lift the center portion of the bridge (the steel deck) to permit ships to pass underneath it.”

Additionally, Schapiro blamed harsh winter weather in 2018 for contributing to the lengthening of the construction timetable.

As many as 52,000 vehicles traverse the Wittpenn Bridge on an average weekday, but if the structure is flooded out or shut for maintenance, drivers are compelled to shift to the bridge on Truck Route 1 & 9 or the Pulaski Skyway as alternate ways to cross the Hackensack River going west.

Even when the bridge is working, motorists must contend with narrow 10-foot-wide lanes in each direction with no separation barrier, an open steel grid deck that makes it hard to maneuver in rain or snow, no shoulders on the bridge or its approaches, and ramps that make it hard to speed up and slow down.

These safety issues have contributed to a higher rate of accidents, particularly near the Fish House Road turnoff, which has twice the statewide average.

Drivers using the Wittpenn bridge are also plagued with periodic bridge openings to allow marine traffic to pass through. Here’s what the new bridge project will offer:

  • New east and west approaches extending nearly one mile from the western end of Charlotte Avenue in Jersey City to the east of the New Jersey Transit Morris & Essex Line overpass in Kearny. These byways will replace the Fish House Road interchange but keep the ramp exit to St. Paul’s Avenue.
  • Four 12-foot-wide lanes (two in each direction), two 12-foot-wide auxiliary lanes, two outer and inner shoulders, a sidewalk, a median barrier, and parapets.
  • Improved connections to Routes 1 & 9 in Jersey City to the east and to Route 7, Fish House Road, and local roads in Kearny to the west. This infrastructure—designed to last 100 years—will use decking similar to the kind used on U.S. battleships. New York’s Whitestone Bridge and San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge feature the material; it’s being used for the first time in the Garden State.
  • An additional 45 feet of vertical clearance in the closed position, thereby reducing the need for bridge openings from 300 to an estimated 63 annually.
  • Two additional lanes on Fish House Road (one in each direction) to improve traffic mobility. The road will also be realigned to the west of the PSE&G tower so that the utility won’t need to park maintenance vehicles in the roadway to access the tower.

The new bridge requires the addition of three river piers for support, according to general contractor George Harms Construction Co., of Howell, New Jersey. An existing fender system (concrete piles and timber placed between bridge channel piers to help guide vessels through those channels) is being extended to the north to protect the new 3,450-foot-long mainline structure.

No residential structures are being displaced by the project, but two industrial businesses—Shinn Bros. Properties in Kearny and Terminal Ventures in Jersey City—each with 15 employees will close. Terminal is hoping to remain in Jersey CIty.

Work completed so far, according to Schapiro, includes the river piers, fender system, Fish House Road pump station, and several eastbound approach spans for the new bridge.

Still under construction are the new vertical lift bridge span and towers, the east and west approach spans to the bridge, the relocation of Fish House Road, flyover ramps to Fish House Road, the ramp to Newark Avenue, and a new embankment where the relocated roadway and ramps will connect the new bridge to the roads. Extensive work relocating various utilities also remains to be done.

For more coverage of Jersey City traffic matters, click here.

Header photo by NJ Department of Transportation

Bill Seeks to Clean Air in Low Income Communities

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The Covanta Energy plant, the state’s largest garbage incinerator, has long sent plumes of polluted air over Newark’s Ironbound neighborhood. When the wind is right, alternating acrid or putrid smells cross the Hackensack River toward Jersey City’s West Side, which faces Covanta and other plants and chemical factories from the east, including the Talen Cogenin Newark and the PSEG Kearny Generating Station, which emits thousands of tons of carbon dioxide annually.

Now a bill recently passed by the State Senate aims to make sure that communities already overburdened with potentially harmful pollutants are able to block new or expanded electric plants, incinerators, sewage treatment plants, landfills, solid waste facilities, or other major sources of pollution. Sponsored by State Senators Troy Singleton and Loretta Weinberg, Senate Bill 232 still needs to pass the state assembly; Governor Murphy has indicated he would sign it. Advocates say it could serve as a model environmental justice law for the country.

“We are a nation that has a horrific record on environmental issues, which disproportionately impacts people of color,” said Senator Cory Booker to an online audience June 30, in a panel organized by NJ Spotlight. Booker has introduced a related bill at the federal level. “The best indicator of whether you live around toxicity is the color of your skin,” he added.

The air quality in Newark leads to asthma rates three times the national average. In Jersey City, children visit the hospital for asthma 1.5 times more than the state average, and Black children in New Jersey have asthma at four times the rate of white children. “In the same way we are seeing awakenings around criminal justice,” said Senator Booker, “environmental justice has to be more centered in our conversation–air quality, water quality, other toxins are ravishing communities already struggling with police violence.”

“The bill is the power to say no,” Maria Lopez-Nuñez, deputy director of the Ironbound Community Corporation.It stipulates that the state must establish a list of burdened communities–those in the bottom third of census tracts for median household incomes–and requires a public hearing for any new or expanding facility in those areas, in which community support or objection will weigh in the state DEP decision to grant or reject a permit. Currently, nearly two-thirds of New Jersey’s 37 power plants are in “environmental justice communities”, areas overburdened by environmental harms and risks. “When we fight for clean air and to be able to breathe in a global pandemic, we need to fight for regenerative responses,” added Lopez-Nunez. “We wake up in the night tasting the air.”

“The challenge with the two plants in Newark and the one in Kearny is that currently you have to prove that the smells are coming from their plants in order to take action,” says Ward B Councilperson Mira Prinz-Arey. “The bill will help, but there are still challenges. Once it passes at the state level, then we can look at how we can best apply at local level.”

In addition to regulating waste and power facilities, panelists said mobile sources of pollutants such as cars and trucks required greater regulation as well. “To reduce the significant amount of pollution we often find in environmental justice communities, it’s not just one bill,” said Nicky Sheats, director of the New Jersey Environmental Justice Alliance. “It will take cumulative policies to address cumulative impacts.”

Photo: PSE&G Kearny by Carly Berwick