Highlands Bridge Report

Picture emerging of new Route 36 bridge

Published in the Asbury Park Press 4/03/01 By SHERRY FIGDORE MIDDLETOWN BUREAU HIGHLANDS -- More than 10 years after the state Department of Transportation decided it was time to replace the Route 36 bridge between Highlands and Sea Bright, practical discussions are underway as to exactly what the new bridge should look like and how it will fit in with the local and regional community.

At an informal conference yesterday, 45 federal, state, county and municipal government officials sat down with representatives of the fishing, boating and restaurant communities as a "community partnering team" whose aim is to "get a bridge that's acceptable to the community."

"This has been in the pipeline since 1988," said Lynne Baumann, of Sverdrup & Parcel, Inc., consulting engineers for the project.

The bridge, built in 1932, "needs to be replaced for structural reasons," she said. "It has a substandard deck. We need 12-foot wide lanes. There is no shoulder. Because of the metal deck, there is a disproportionate number of rear-end collisions."

In 1989, the steel deck was partially replaced. In 1991, federal and state transportation officials agreed to build a fixed bridge with a vertical clearance of 55 feet.

By 1996, the height was up to 60 feet, but the Coast Guard said the minimum elevation over river traffic had to be at least 65 feet to accommodate tall vessels, both pleasure boats and dredges.

There were other restraints, Baumann said. Because Route 36 is an evacuation route, it cannot be closed for long. And because the river is a designated haven for boats in a storm, the safe passage requires a minimum 100-foot vertical clearance.

"So all fixed bridges were out, and we went back to the drawing board," she said.

The current preliminary proposal under discussion, a $100.5 million construction expected to get underway late in 2005, is a compromise. The new bridge, a double leaf bascule -- a drawbridge with two movable deck sections that open to allow passage of tall vessels -- will be higher, rising 60 feet over mean high tide compared to the present bridge's 35-foot height.

Officials said yesterday they expect as much as 90 percent of boats in the river will be able to pass beneath the higher span, greatly reducing the number of bridge openings.

The length, because of property restrictions, will be identical. The new bridge abutments will lie directly behind the current structures. Only two driveways on the Highlands end will have to be reconfigured.

"We can't eliminate marine-vehicular conflict, but we can try to minimize it," Baumann said.

"How many boats require more than 60 feet of clearance?" asked Pat Mason, a Rumson representative to the Navesink River Municipalities Committee. "I certainly wouldn't want to spend $28 million extra for one or two boats. I don't understand why we have to go to a drawbridge."

"We need to put back a better structure than we have now," Baumann said.

The plan is to build half the new bridge at a time, as was done for the Route 35 bridge across the Navesink River between Middletown and Red Bank.

The new span will be considerably wider, two lanes and a shoulder in each direction. Current plans call for a sidewalk on only one side, but many yesterday urged that another pedestrian walkway be added to the other side.

Richard Wells, deputy superintendent of the Sandy Hook Unit of Gateway National Recreation Area, and Spencer H. Wickham, chief of acquisition and design for the Monmouth County Park System, were concerned about the connection of the bridge's pedestrian ramps with the 20-mile-long Henry Hudson Trail, Sandy Hook's new bikeway planned for construction in 2003 and the bike path running along the sea wall in Sea Bright.

Ray Cosgrove, who hosted the session at his restaurant, Bahrs Landing, said the bridge sitehas the "best striped bass fishing on the eastern seaboard."

He urged designers to add fishing platforms on the new bridge or to revamp abandoned piers from the old railroad bridge for use by fishermen. "The three B's of the area are beaches, bikes and boats," Cosgrove said. "We need access for all three."