WASHINGTON CROSSING – Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission maintenance personnel are scheduled to begin replacing damaged and weathered wooden planks on the Washington Crossing Toll-Supported Bridge’s pedestrian walkway next week.
The work, which is weather sensitive, is not expected to affect pedestrians using the bridge. Workers are to provide accommodation whenever a pedestrian approaches a walkway section undergoing plank replacement. Commission maintenance staff have decades of experience replacing walkway boards while allowing pedestrians to cross.
Unlike recent years, when small numbers of walkway planks underwent replacement, this year’s work will involve hundreds of planks. The bridge walkway has 1,384 individual treated-lumber planks and approximately 800 of them are expected to be replaced in the coming weeks.
This year’s removal and replacement process will take place weekdays during daytime hours, starting from the bridge’s New Jersey side and progressing across to Pennsylvania.. The work could begin as soon as Monday, May 19. The goal is to complete the plank replacements by the July 4 holiday weekend – weather permitting.
The Washington Crossing Bridge opened to traffic as a privately owned tolled crossing April 11, 1905. A walkway was added to the steel double-intersecting Warren truss superstructure in 1926. The bridge is the Commission’s narrowest vehicular crossing, connecting Hopewell Township, N.J. and Upper Makefield, PA. It carried an average 6,600 vehicles per day in 2024.
