APP.com Feb 2008 HIGHLANDS — As planned, the state Department of Transportation began preliminary work to replace the Highlands-Sea Bright bridge on Route 36. On Monday, the J.H. Reid Construction Company of South Plainfield began clearing trees near the foot of the bridge on the east side of the roadway at the entrance to Sandy Hook. "The company will be setting up a construction site, a construction yard," said Erin Phalon, a spokesperson for the DOT. The construction yard will house the field trailers needed by the construction company for the duration of the project. Additional preliminary work includes installing signage for motorists, trimming vegetation surrounding the signs for visibility and installing a soil erosion control measure, she said. For more than a decade, the DOT has been planning to replace the 75-year-old drawbridge over the Shrewsbury River. The state's plans are to build a 65-foot fixed-span bridge. The go-ahead for the DOT's construction came after a federal district court judge ruled against an injunction request filed in December by the Citizens for Rational Coastal Development. The oral argument was held in Trenton on Feb. 4. "We have not lost yet," Shirley Olman of Highlands, a member of the citizens group, wrote in an e-mail. On Jan. 25, the group filed a motion against the State House Commission and the borough of Highlands, seeking a second injunction to stop the project. "I, along with my co-chairman, Jim Parla of Highlands, are hopeful with good reason that our (request for an) injunction filed on Friday, Jan. 25, will produce results that will stop the DOT from building the proposed bridge," she wrote. The citizens group is protesting the new bridge, citing its safety in the winter, the aesthetics of the area and the bridge's historical value as reasons for its objections. The estimated cost of the project is $124,559,819, Phalon said. Under the project's time line, construction of the new bridge is scheduled to start this fall. The existing bridge will be demolished by the spring or summer of 2009, said Timothy Greeley, of the DOT communications office. On Friday, the DOT will close a single lane and shift traffic on the entrance ramps to Sandy Hook each night in order to build a temporary intersection in Sea Bright. At no time during the construction will traffic be detoured from Route 36, Commissioner Kris Kolluri wrote in his press release. Variable message signs will be installed to inform motorists of changes in traffic operations during construction, and equipment also will be installed to measure traffic speed. State and local police also will be utilized for work-zone safety during construction operations, according to the press release. However, according to Olman, "some people feel the best is yet to come — fighting to the end to save our drawbridge." |
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