NEW HOPE, PA – The New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202) Toll Bridge will be reduced to single travel lanes in each direction for a multi-faceted construction project that is scheduled to get underway June 23, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) announced today.
The project will involve removal of the bridge’s former cash-collection toll plaza and construction of an overhead toll gantry outfitted with E-ZPass toll tag reading equipment and cameras to record the license plates of non-E-ZPass-equipped motorists. The project also will include repairs to the bridge’s Pennsylvania abutment backwall, which is cracked and rotating.
To carry out the project, single-lane travel restrictions will be needed along both directions of Route 202 in the vicinity of the toll bridge starting Monday, June 23. Additionally, wide-loads will be prohibited in the southbound direction during toll-gantry construction. The single-lane restrictions (one of two lanes open in each direction) are expected to remain in place into 2026.
Route 202 motorists approaching the bridge are urged to reduce speeds, prepare for lane shifts, and exercise caution when approaching restricted travel areas. Travel delays are not expected. (NOTE: Scheduled start date is subject to change due to weather, emergencies, and other factors.)
The upcoming construction project’s most significant task involves the erection of an open-road tolling gantry in close proximity to the former cash-collection toll plaza on the bridge’s Pennsylvania side. The gantry will consist of a painted metal monopole supported by precast concrete columns having a fieldstone appearance. Electronic tolling equipment would be suspended from the hollow monotube, approximately 23 feet over the roadway surface.
The gantry, when completed, would mark the first time that a former DRJTBC cash-collection toll plaza gets replaced with a highway-speed all-electronic tolling (AET) facility. It’s anticipated that the project will serve as a prototype for subsequent open-road tolling conversions of six other Commission bridges where cash tolls were once collected.
Like many other toll agencies across the country and around the globe, the Commission has stopped accepting cash toll payments. Cash collections ended at the New Hope-Lambertville location a year ago.
Cashless AET collections – currently consisting of E-ZPass with lower toll rates and TOLL BY PLATE with higher toll rates – are safer, better for the environment, and less expensive to collect than manual in-lane cash transactions.
The Commission in April approved an $11.86 million low-bid contract with PFK-Mark III, Inc. of Newtown, PA. to carry out the New Hope-Lambertville Toll Bridge All Electronic Tolling Conversion and Pennsylvania Abutment Backwall Replacement Project.
The project’s major tasks are:
- Remove the Route 202 northbound roadway jog at the tolling point and reconstruct the median barrier at that location;
- Replace existing guide rail with single face concrete barrier;
- Demolish the former cash-collection toll plaza facility and cap existing tunnel egress stairs;
- Install a single-span monopipe gantry with concrete support columns;
- Demolish and reconstruct the bridge’s PA abutment backwall;
- Remove, rehabilitate, and reset the tooth dam in the abutment’s header;
- Demolish approach slabs, median barrier, wingwall extension and parapets up to retaining wall;
- Reconstruct concrete bridge approach slabs, concrete median barrier, and concrete parapets;
- Replace the PA abutment drainage trough and additional existing drainage inlets to align with reconfigured roadway footprint.
All project tasks — including roadway realignment, abutment backwall repair and landscaping — are expected to be completed by late winter/early spring 2027.
Once the overhead toll gantry is erected, the installation, calibration and testing of tolling equipment will be carried out by crews from TransCore under a prior multi-year Commission agreement stemming from a 2024 South Jersey Transportation Authority AET system procurement.
The New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202) Toll Bridge opened to traffic in 1971. While named for two nearby riverfront commercial centers, the bridge actually crosses the Delaware River between Solebury, PA. and Delaware Township, PA. Tolls originally were collected in both directions at the bridge. However, the bridge was converted to one-way collections in the southbound (PA-bound) direction on December 1, 2002.
The bridge carried an average 13,800 vehicles per day in both directions during 2024. The New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202) facility holds the distinction as the Commission toll bridge with the highest E-ZPass usage percentage. In 2024, 92.65 percent of toll transactions at this location were paid through E-ZPass.
