County engineer: Oceanic Bridge should remain low State will have final say on height of replacement span BY LAYLI WHYTE Staff Writer The county has recommended replacing the Oceanic Bridge with a similar span. County officials have recommended that the new span built to replace the Oceanic Bridge, Rumson, remain a low-level, moveable bridge rather than a higher, fixed span. Monmouth County Engineer Joseph M. Ettore has recommended against replacing the Oceanic Bridge, which is a drawbridge, with a 70-foot-high fixed bridge. This is good news for the Friends of the Oceanic Bridge Association (FOBA), an organization formed by residents of both Rumson and Middletown, the two municipalities connected by the Oceanic Bridge, who were concerned about the impact that a high-level bridge would have on their communities. The 2,712-foot drawbridge was built in 1939 and connects Rumson and the Locust section of Middletown. John Lewis, a member of FOBA, said that the group is very pleased with the county’s recommendation for the lower-level bridge. “It wasn’t actually a surprise,” he said. “At the county Engineer’s Office, there was one book over an inch thick on community reaction.” Included in that book, Lewis said, was a study done in November 2005 by the Otteau Appraisal Group, East Brunswick, a company hired by FOBA, which stated that a high-level bridge could seriously lower area real estate values. Lewis said that now that the county has made its recommendations, the state will also have to approve the recommendation, so the fight is not over yet. “We can’t breathe a big sigh of relief until that happens,” he said, “but it’s good for morale.” According to a report submitted by Ettore to Sascha Barthwaite at the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, Newark, the county looked at several alternatives for dealing with the deterioration of the bridge, ranging from taking no action to removing the bridge in its entirety. Currently, the Oceanic Bridge stands at a height of about 50 feet and has a movable span that allows for taller vessels to pass through. Ettore said previously that the cost of replacing the bridge would be around $50 million, and for that reason, the county had decided to solicit for federal funding for the project. It is because of this prospective federal funding that the tall bridge may be the preferred option, according to Ettore, who said the federal government prefers bridges that are fixed, not movable, spans because that means less maintenance and less cost. The plan preferred by the federal government, according to Ettore, would replace the lower bridge with a 70-foot-high bridge, which would be tall enough for vessels to pass under without opening. The county’s preferred alternative, according to the Alternatives Analysis Report, is replacing the bridge with a similarly styled, low-level, movable bridge. “The selection of the preferred alternative must consider many factors,” the report states. “First is the need to provide a safe and reliable transportation network to service the needs of the traveling public. Second, is the need to minimize impacts to environmentally sensitive resources, the historic structure and the traveling public. The third factor, cost, is dependent upon the first two factors.” According to the report, since neither removing the bridge, nor taking no action concerning the deteriorating bridge meets the project need, other alternatives, including rehabilitating the existing bridge, replacing the bridge with a high-level, fixed-bridge, or with a low-level movable bridge with a different alignment, were also considered. After considering all of the alternatives, according to the report, the county settled on recommending the alternative known as IV-B, which would mean the replacement of the bridge with a low-level movable bridge at a new alignment. “Of the alternatives considered,” the report states, “the only one that is viable. meets the project need, and addresses traffic issues is Alternative IV-B - Low Level Movable option. This alternative also provides a compatible bridge appearance and functionality consistent with the existing historic structure at the lowest construction and life cycles costs. This alternative provides the best balance between competing issues and is therefore recommended for further development.” The report concedes that the replacement of the bridge will have an adverse effect on the historic relevance of the bridge, but the plan is to build a new bridge incorporating the Moderne architecture of the existing bridge, as well as the same vertical profile. “The replacement bridge will follow a slightly different alignment over the water as the existing,” the report states. “The alignment shift is required in order to facilitate construction staging. Traffic will be maintained on the existing bridge while the new bridge is being constructed.” The report states that during the final stages of construction, traffic would be shut down in order to tie the new bridge to the existing roadways, resulting in a six-month-long detour. “If the new bridge were constructed in the same location as the existing,” the report states, “traffic would have to be detoured for 30 months, resulting in increased traffic impacts to the community. By incorporating the horizontal alignment shift, the traffic impacts from the detour are reduced by two years.” Lewis said that if FOBA finds the state may be leaning toward a high-level bridge, the association may plead its case at the state level.