Bridges get rebuilt
By LEE PROCIDA
Cherry Hill Sun
2/14/2008

$9.9 million project to rebuild spans on Maple and Chapel avenues; will detour traffic through next winter

If you’ve always dreamed of re-enacting a “Dukes of Hazard”-style getaway, where you plow through a sign reading “Bridge Is Out” and jump your car to the other side, now is your chance, but we don’t recommend it.

The bridges on Maple and Chapel avenues that cross the NJ Transit train tracks closed last week for a $9.9 million project that will rebuild the aged spans.

The Maple Avenue bridge will be closed until next February, and the Chapel Avenue bridge will reopen this December, according to the Department of Transportation.

“Both structures are structurally deficient,” DOT spokesperson Tim Greeley said. “During the design process, we looked at rehabilitating the bridges, but determined they need to be completely rebuilt.”

That means detours for the more than 8,000 cars that traverse both bridges each day. For drivers traveling southeast on Chapel Avenue, they will need to turn right onto Hampton Road before the bridge, then make a left onto Route 38 East to get back to Chapel Avenue.

For drivers coming from the opposite direction on Chapel Avenue, they will have to reverse that route and travel West on Route 38, make a right onto Hampton Avenue and then follow that back to Chapel.

As for Maple Avenue, eastbound drivers are looking at a year of making rights onto Church Road and taking that to Haddonfield Road, where they can make a left to get back to Maple.

Westbound traffic will follow the same route, from Maple Avenue to Haddonfield Road to Church Road and then back to Maple Avenue.

Greeley said both bridges were built by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at the end of the 19th century.

He said because of their age, the project was already on the DOT’s radar before the bridge collapse in Minnesota caused the country to reassess its infrastructure.

The new bridges will be state-of-the-art, but the DOT worked with the Historic Preservation Office to improve the aesthetics of the new spans to reflect their historic heritage.

“They worked with us to develop a design that included historic-look features,” he said, “such as a special railings and colored and formed concrete abutments to look similar to the existing stone abutments.”

Although the new bridges will be opened in approximately a year, work such as drainage improvements, sidewalk installation, curb installation and landscaping in the area will continue until October 2009.

The Chapel Avenue bridge will be rebuilt with a sidewalk on each side, rather than just one side as it currently has.

The new spans will also be made of steel and have no intermediate supports, meaning they will extend from one side to the other without extra beams holding them up. This will raise the bridges several feet, allowing for more clearance as the trains pass below.