Call or email: Director of Community Affairs Jodee Inscho
Phone: 267-394-6561
Email: communityaffairs@drjtbc.org
The current vehicular and pedestrian travel restrictions at the 120-year-old New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge must be extended several more months due to an unforeseen structural condition in one of the bridge’s six spans.
The discovery of a deteriorated critical structural connection in the bridge’s second span from the Pennsylvania side will force postponement of the walkway opening until sometime in December.
Meanwhile, the current New Jersey-bound vehicular traffic detour will likely need to be extended into early 2025, when an uninterrupted two-week-long shutdown of the bridge would be implemented to fully repair the deteriorated structural connection.
In November 2024, this project entered into its final stretch. The removal of the temporary overhead work platform and installation of refurbished upstream guiderails is scheduled to occur during overnight periods from Nov. 18 to Nov. 21.
Other remaining tasks will need to be carried over into 2025 due to the discovery of an unforeseen structural issue in the bridge’s second span from the Pennsylvania side. A firm schedule for addressing the unforseen structural issue is expected to be announced in late November 2024. It won’t be possible to fully reopen the bridge to vehicular traffic in both directions until that structural issue is address — currently projected for the end of January.
A temporary walkway is in service across the bridge’s roadway deck. A free courtesy shuttle bus operates 7 a.m. to 11 p.m. WEEKENDS-ONLY between New Hope and Lambertville. The ride is 12 mnutes long.
A New Jersey-bound traffic prohibition and detour remains in effect. Pennsylvania-bound traffic has been shifted back into its normal travel lane on the bridge’s upstream side.
As with any project of this scope, the schedule is subject to change due to weather, emergecies, and other factors.
The rehabilitation of the 119-year-old New Hope-Lambertville Toll-Supported Bridge began in early 2024. The six-span steel Pratt-truss superstructure was last rehabilitated in 2004.
Note: The recent discovery of an unforeseen structural issue in the bridge’s second span from the PA side is expected to necessite a full bridge closure on two consecutive nights in early December and an uninterrupted two-week-long shutdown of the bridge to all vehicular and pedestrian traffic beginning in mid-January, 2025.
The original bridge rehabilitation included a complete “taken-down-to-bare-metal” and re-painting of the entire structure. Paint enclosures were used for for this work. Vehicular crossings remain restricted to the PA-bound traffic (westbound).
The pedestrian walkway has been replaced, but cannot be put back into service until an unforeseen structural issue at the bridge is temporarilly addressed with the installation of a custom-made stabilization device called a friction collar (current projected new walkway opening is sometime in early December).
The bridge also is being outfitted with a new roadway lighting system and a programmable LED lighting system is being added to the structure to further enhance the truss bridge’s profile along the river.
The rehabilitation project work activities pose temporary impacts to motorists, pedestrians, residents, sightseers, and local businesses.
Ongoing Travel Restrictions
The bridge roadway is restricted to a single travel lane in the Pennsylvania-bound direction ONLY. (This is the tolled direction at the nearby New Hope-Lambertville (Route 202) Toll Bridge.) The bridge walkway was shut down for replacement on July 11. A temporary six-foot wide walkway has been installed and remains open across the bridge’s road deck. As previously noted, the Commission might be in a position to safely to reopen the completed new permanent walkway sometime in early December.
New Jersey-bound traffic remains detoured off the “free” bridge to the nearby toll bridge, where tolls are not charged in the New Jersey-bound direction (Route 202 northbound). Due to the discovery of an unforseen structural issue in one of the bridge’s six truss spans, the New Jersey-bound traffic detour is now expected to remain in place into early 2025. A precise date for fully reopening the bridge is not expected to be announced until early 2025.
This webpage will be updated periodically through the project’s construction stages.
Dec. 4-Dec. 20 – Work limited to daytime hours (7 a.m. to 9 p.m. maximum) weekdays. (Updated Dec. 3)
Schedule subject to change due to weather, river conditions, emergencies, supply-chain issues, staffing considerations, etc.
This document is being revised after the recent discovery of an unforesen structural issue in the bridge’s second span from the Pennsylvania side. Please check back at a later time for this revised schedule of construction activities and related travel restrictions..
Click here to view the detour route of New Jersey-bound traffic at the bridge. This detour has been extended due to the recent discovery of an unforeseen structural issue in the bridge’s second span from the Pennsylvania side. It is now scheduled to continue into Januay 2025
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. Some of these materials are outdated. They remain posted here as part of the project record. 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.
All future dates are tentative estimates 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.