Call or email: Director of Community Affairs Jodee Inscho
Phone: 267-394-6561
Email: communityaffairs@drjtbc.org
Click here to read the press release announcing three project-related contract awards.
The Commission has completed the procurement process for an outside vendor to provide a temporary courtesy shuttle service between the commercial centers in New Hope, PA. and Lambertville, N.J.
The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission is preparing to rehabilitate its 119-year-old New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge. The six-span steel Pratt-truss superstructure was last rehabilitated in 2004.
Project design was completed in September and the project was put out to bid for a contractor. The current schedule is for early site preparations to begin in December, followed by the execution of prescribed construction activities in 2024 — the 120th anniversary year of the current steel bridge’s construction.
This project is not expected to require a full bridge closure. Project staging should allow uninterrupted westbound vehicular travel (Pennsylvania-bound) through the duration of construction activities.
The rehabilitation includes a complete “taken-down-to-bare-metal” and re-painting of the entire structure. Paint enclosures will be required for this work, limiting vehicular crossings (westbound only) to either the bridge’s upstream or downstream sides for prolonged periods. Identified structural issues will be repaired.
The pedestrian walkway will be completely replaced while that half of the bridge undergoes containment and painting. The walkway railing will be removed during this period and sent off-site for re-anodization. The Commission aims to have the walkway work take place during the early cold-weather months of 2024, when foot traffic is significantly lower.
After painting and repairs are completed, the bridge is to be outfitted with a programmable LED lighting system to enhance the truss bridge’s profile along the river.
The rehabilitation project work activities will temporarily impact motorists, pedestrians, residents, and local businesses.
Travel Impacts
December 2023 – Periodic off-peak alternating single-lane vehicular travel restrictions on weekdays. This is expected to be the contractor’s mobilization period, when installation of the under-bridge platform for the rehabilitation begins.
January to early April 2024 – The bridge remains open to westbound travel (PA-bound), thereby enabling motorists to continue avoiding the PA-bound tolls (Route 202 southbound) at the toll bridge one mile upstream. Meanwhile, eastbound vehicular travel from New Hope to Lambertville will be detoured over the toll bridge’s non-toll NJ-bound direction (Route 202 north) one mile upstream. The pedestrian walkway will be shutdown from January to mid-April as the current walkway panels and accompanying railings get removed. New walkway panels will be installed, while the railings will be re-anodized and then reinstalled. The Commission has committed to provide — and is now in the process of procuring — a shuttle service to transport individuals affected by the temporary walkway closure. More information can be provided once the service is procured.
Mid-April to late May 2024 – The walkway work is staged to be completed and reopened before Lambertville’s annual Shad Fest. Westbound vehicular travel will be shifted to the bridge’s downstream lane, allowing the bridge’s upstream side to be placed in containment for paint removal and repainting. Eastbound traffic will continues to be detoured across the nearby toll bridge’s non-tolled direction (Route 202 northbound).
Late May to September – The bridge will be fully opened on weekends only by Memorial Day. An eastbound vehicular traffic detour via the non-toll direction at the toll bridge will be in effect around-the-clock on weekdays.
All project-related travel restrictions — short- and long-term — are to end Sept. 19, 2024.
More Information
Please see the informational display boards from the public open houses held in New Hope on June 14 and Lambertville on June 15 for more information on how project construction and travel impacts are expected to be staged. They may be viewed by clicking on the Open House Informational Display Boards tab in the drop-down menu in this page’s right column.
This webpage will be updated periodically through design, procurement, and construction.
The folowing items are the informational display boards that were presented to the public at open houses in New Hope on June 14 and Lambertville June 15. Please click on each title below to review the respective display board content:
The Commission provided two open houses and a 14-day public comment period prior to this project’s final design process, which began July 1, 2023.
This public involvement effort generated written comments and/or questions from 49 different individuals. Of the 54 comments/questions received, 20 were submitted via an open-house form and 34 were submitted online. Five individuals submitted twice.
The majority of comments/questions concerned two topics: (1) the architectural lighting planned for the bridge, and (2) the free shuttle service the Commission has committed to provide while the bridge walkway is closed for replacement between January and late April 2024. The architectural lighting is a facet of the project final design process. However, the shuttle service is neither part of the design process or the anticipated construction contract. More information will be provided on this service once the Commission contracts with a vendor to provide the service.
This project continues to advance in accordance with the projected schedule. All future dates are tentative estimates (as of September 21, 2023) and are subject to change:
The anticipated scope of work for this bridge rehabilitation is anticipated to include (as of March 2023):
The current six-span steel Pratt-truss New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge is the Commission’s fourth oldest superstructure. It opened to traffic in July 1904. The older superstructures are at Calhoun Street (1884), Northampton Street (1895-96), and Riegelsville (April 1904).
The bridge’s steel superstructure rests on abutments and piers believed to have been constructed in 1813 and modified after major floods in 1841 and 1903. The steel superstructure was designed by R. G. Develin, a Pennsylvania Railroad civil engineer, and constructed between April and August 1904 by Lewis F Shoemaker & Co. of Pottstown, PA. The bridge’s steel members were manufactured by the Cambria Steel Company in Johnstown, PA. The bridge was formally dedicated on Labor Day weekend 1904.
The bridge was constructed for the second incarnation of the New Hope Delaware Bridge Co., which operated it as a tolled crossing for its first 17 years. The local shareholder-owned bridge company sold its bridge to the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey on December 31, 1919 for $225,000. The sale had been arranged by the former Joint Commission for Elimination of Toll Bridges — Pennsylvania-New Jersey, the predecessor agency to today’s Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.
The two states jointly owned the bridge for 67 years, annually paying the old Joint Commission and, later, the new Bridge Commission to operate and maintain the bridge. On July 1, 1987, the two states conveyed ownership of the bridge outright to the Bridge Commission under terms of a revised federal Compact that directed the Commission to operate and maintain the bridge — and 11 other bridges like it — with a share of the proceeds collected at the agency’s toll bridges.
The second bridge span from the Pennsylvania side sustained considerable damage in the historic river flood of August 19, 1955. The bridge was subsequently shut down to all but emergency vehicles for about five weeks while repairs were made. The bridge reopened to traffic September 22, 1955.
The bridge carried U.S. 202 across the Delaware River until 1971, when a four-lane toll bridge opened about a mile upstream. Even before the construction of the toll bridge, the aging truss bridge between New Hope and Lambertville had its weight limit reduced several times.
The bridge’s last rehabilitation in 2004 was significant. Major work items performed under the project included replacement of the floor system and deck; widening of the walkway to eight feet from the former six feet and installing a fiberglass walkway surface; superstructure and
substructure repairs; and cleaning and painting of the steel superstructure and bearings.
The bridge’s current posted weight restriction is 4 tons. The Commission posts bridge monitors at both ends of the structure to protect it from overweight vehicles. In 2022, 1,038 vehicles were denied entry onto the bridge and turned away by the stationed bridge monitors.
A total of 4,519,653 vehicular crossings were recorded at the bridge in 2022. That works out to an annual average of 12,400 vehicles per day.
The bridge has a 15 m.p.h. speed limit and 10-foot vertical clearance.
The Commission considers this bridge to be the most painted and photographed structure along the river, owing largely to its location between the arts-oriented communities of New Hope and Lambertville. The bridge also is believed to have the highest pedestrian usage counts of any crossing along the river.
Year constructed/opened: 1904
Structure type: Steel Pratt truss
Total length: 1055 feet (individual span lengths vary only slightly)
Width: 27 feet (outside truss)
Number of traffic lanes:
Total clear roadway width: 20 feet, 7 inches
Sidewalk width: 8 feet
Load posting: 4 tons
Vertical clearance on structure: 10-feet
FHWA classification: Functionally Obsolete
Last Rehabilitation: 2004
Last Painted: 2004
Flood Info (river reading levels in feet):
River Crossing Ownership
Bridge Roadway Drone Footage – Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission March 19, 2020 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2P90BE-yHY
River View Drone Footage 1 – Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission October 21, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auGq2Jr8-qI
River View Drone Footage 2 – Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission October 21, 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmscJ1LkbXk
Cambria Steel Company/Wikipedia Audio Article (major beams and girders of the New Hope-Lambertville Bridge were produced by the Cambria Steel Company)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_RAsK6gYQEM
The Story of the Cambria Iron Works (later renamed Cambria Steel Company)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zGoOMwHq0_Q&t=33s
Roadwaywiz, Westboud (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-re4x_6HeI
Roadwaywiz Eastbound (YouTube) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEIsS7HgJ-A
Anchor House Ride 2013 – Part 3/John Hinton (YouTube) – New Hope-Lambertville segment begins at 13:18 mark https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnGYYDb0HL4
New Hope Historical Society/John Weber 200th Anniversary Video (2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0UVvps1ypc&t=49s
Bridgehunter.com
https://bridgehunter.com/pa/bucks/97411999100050/
Historicbridges.org
https://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=newjersey/lambertville/
Bomboy, R. Scott Wooden Treasures; The Story of Bucks County’s Covered Bridges, Bridgetown Communications, 2022 (Print) 16-18, 19-20, 118-121
Dale, Frank T. Bridges over the Delaware River: A History of Crossings. Rutgers University Press, 2003 (Print), 21-28
Richman, Steven M. The Bridges of New Jersey: Portraits of Garden State Crossings. Rutgers University Press 2005 (Print) 58-59, 78-79
Shafer, Mary A. Devastation on the Delaware: Stories and Images of the Deadly Flood of 1955 Word Forge Books 2005 (Print) 80-81, 250, 268, 315, 329, 370, 420
Shank, P.E., William H. Historic Bridges of Pennsylvania. American Canal & Transportation Center Eighth Printing, Fourth Edition 2004 (Print) 8
Allen, Richard Sanders Covered Bridges of the Northeast. Dover Publications, Inc. 2004 (Print) 90-91
Mastrich, James; Warren, Yvonne; Kline, George; Lambertville and New Hope. Arcadia Publishing 1996 (Print) Sections One, Four, Six
Christianson, Justin & Marston, Christopher H.; Covered Bridges and the Birth of American Engineering. Historical American Engineering Record, National Park Service (Print) 105
The Commission’s Deputy Executive Director of Communications, Joe Donnelly, has endeavoed to compile a full history of the river crossing between New Hope, PA. and Lambertville, N.J. This effort began in the 200th anniversary year (2014) of the innaugural wooden bridge to be constructed at this location. Over the years, Donnelly has updated and expanded the research, culminating with a 90-minute-long presentation for the Lambertville Historical Society in November 2022. That program was further edited, expanded, and converted into a 202-slide PDF file that may be viewed here free of charge. The presentation includes numerous corrections of erroneous information in prior presentations and publications, including the Commission’s bridge manual. Allow three hours to view the images and accompanying presentation notes.
An Enduring Crossing: The Full — and Accurate — History of the New Hope-Lambertville Bridge
The following form may be used for online inquiries for the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission’s New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge Rehabilitation Project. Asterisk items are mandatory. Boxes marked † are optional.