Road to be closed for 210 days
The Mercer County Department of Transportation and Infrastructure will start the replacement of the bridge on Church Street (CR 609) over Doctors Creek in Hamilton Township on Wednesday, March 18.
Officially known as Bridge #672.2, the structure is located between NJ Route 156 and Main Street in Groveville near the Eagle Rock apartments. This project is to be completed in 210 calendar days, weather permitting.
During construction, the bridge will be closed to all traffic on a 24/7 basis. The contractor will install advance notification signs by March 4. A detour will be posted directing motorists to NJ Route 156 to South Broad Street to Main Street.
Map of Doctors Creek and Church Street
The existing bridge carrying Church Street over Doctors Creek is a concrete-encased steel girder bridge. The structure is considered structurally deficient due to the poor condition of the substructure and functionally obsolete due to the inadequate deck geometry.
The replacement bridge will be a single-span structure supported on full-height concrete abutments. The superstructure will consist of steel-welded plate girders with a composite reinforced concrete deck. The substructure will be full-height reinforced concrete abutments founded on cast-in-place pile caps on top of reinforced concrete piles with permanent steel sheeting scour protection. The structure will have cast-in-place reinforced concrete approach slabs. The proposed roadway cross section at the bridge will consist of two 12-foot travel lanes, two 4-foot shoulders minimum and two 5-foot sidewalks.
The contractor selected to perform the work, Marbro Inc. of Long Branch, submitted a bid price of $4,921,117. Marbro has successfully completed similar projects in Mercer County and provided the lowest bid price for this project. The contract was approved by the Mercer County Board of Chosen Freeholders on Feb. 13.
