On April 18 the Carter Road bridge in Lawrence will be closed for 135 days as construction begins to replace the structurally deficient bridge.
LAWRENCE -- Construction will start in April on replacing the Carter Road bridge over the Shipetaukin Creek in Lawrence due to structural defects in the span, Mercer County officials said Wednesday.
The county announced that starting April 18, through traffic on Carter Road will be closed for about 135 days, weather permitting.
The bridge is between Route 206 and Van Kirk Road, and detours will be in place on Route 206 and Rosedale Road, to the north.
Contractor Marbro Inc. of Montclair was low-bid winner to do the replacement, at $2,017,117.
Mercer County Executive Brian Hughes said in a statement that due to the bridge's 49.2 sufficiency rating, officials pushed the Carter Road construction ahead of the Stony Brook bridge project in Princeton. The sufficiency rating is out of 100.
The existing bridge is a single-span, reinforced arch bridge supported on spread footings. The bridge's poor condition is due to multiple defects in the structure, and sub-structure, officials said.
"We fast-tracked the Carter Road bridge work so that motorists would not be inconvenienced by simultaneous projects in the area," Hughes said. The Carter Road bridge construction was originally slated to take 150 days not 135, he added.
The Route 206 bridge over Stony Brook was closed for emergency repairs at the end of February and beginning of March, after a parapet collapsed on the structure.
After it reopened on March 7, the Department of Transportation said follow-up work during off-peak hours may be conducted in weeks following.
Mercer County officials said the Carter Road bridge replacement bridge will also be a single-span structure and supported by concrete box beams and a reinforced concrete deck.
It will support 12-foot-wide travel lanes and two 7-foot-wide shoulders and sidewalks on the west side.
Signs are already in place along Carter Road informing motorists the the road will soon be closed.
Lindsay Rittenhouse may be reached at lrittenhouse@njadvancemedia.com. Find NJ.com on Facebook.