Newburgh Road to Close for One Year During Bridge Replacement

Plans to replace the Newburgh Road Bridge have been in the works for more than a decade after the passageway between Morris and Warren Counties was deemed structurally deficient and functionally obsolete.

Those plans will now become project, and it won’t be an easy or quick fix. 

Washington Township officials announced this week the bridge replacement will begin on or around September 3 and is expected to last up to a year.

The bridge connects the northern portion of Washington Township to Mansfield Township and, more importantly, Schooley’s Mountain Road to Route 57.

Built in 1908 as a two-span, steel stringer bridge in 1908, the bridge was deemed deficient by Cherry, Weber and Associates at the turn of the millennium.

Currently, the Newburgh Road bridge is just over 20 feet wide, well below what is considered standard for modern roadways. The bridge also does not currently feature any shoulders or sidewalks, and the narrow width of the bridge makes it inconvenient for traffic to get through quickly.

The proposed new bridge will be a single-span concrete bridge, with the single span measuring 69 feet, 6 inches in length. The total width of the new bridge will measure just over 50 feet.

The width of the road on the bridge will be consistent with the rest of Newburgh Road, measuring a more standard width of over 41 feet. Also included in the plan is a sidewalk to run along the upstream side of the bridge, which sits over the Musconetcong River. This will allow for foot traffic to and from local businesses by area residents.

Motorists heading north on Schooley’s Mountain will need to make a left at the intersection of Rt. 182 and Rt. 57 to reach Mansfield Township. Motorists heading from Warren County to Washington Township will need to travel east on Rt. 57 to the intersection of Rt. 182 and Schooley’s Mountain Road.

Plans and resolutions to complete the project were finalized in 2011, and the replacement had an anticipated start date of the spring of 2012. A delay in federal funding to the project pushed the work off until now.

The project is being completed by Konkus Corporation of Branchburg under the direction of the Morris County Department of Public Works Division of Engineering.