YARDLEY, PA. – The Lumberville-Raven Rock Toll-Supported Pedestrian Bridge will be outfitted with security cameras and color-programmable “node lighting” under a contract awarded today by the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission.
Under the upcoming project, the Commission also will assume responsibility for the displaying of an American flag on the bridge, a tradition initiated by the late William E. Tinsman after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001.
Entitled the Lumberville-Raven Rock Toll-Supported Bridge Architectural Lighting & Electronic Surveillance/Detection System Project, the current plan is to keep the bridge open to walkers while work takes place.
The contract for the work was awarded to PKF-Mark III, Inc. of Newtown, PA. for a not-to-exceed amount of $3,227,970. Approval of the contract occurred at today’s Commission meeting in Lower Makefield, PA.
The project will make the following changes:
Security Cameras
The bridge will be outfitted with a handful of cameras that would enable Commission security personnel to monitor the bridge and the river upstream and downstream on a 24/7 basis. The cameras would better enable the Commission to confirm reported incidents and potentially speed responses to capsized watercrafts, suicide attempts, or pedestrians struck by bicyclists who fail to dismount and walk across the bridge.
The bridge is the only structure in the Commission’s transportation network that does not have any kind of remote monitoring capability for emergencies, incidents, and high-water events.
New Bridge Lighting
A system of color-programmable LED “node” fixtures will be installed at each upper turnbuckle connection along the bridge’s primary steel-wire ropes, which are strung between support towers and attached to anchorages at each end of the bridge. The individual “node lights” will differ from the architectural lighting systems on Commission truss bridges by collectively highlighting only the sweeping arcs of the suspension bridge’s distinctive multi-catenary profile along the river.
The existing light fixtures attached to the bridge’s towers will be removed and replaced with 2700 Kelvin LED fixtures. The tower fixtures cast light down onto portions of walkway. The current existing fixtures are energy inefficient, costly to operate, and reaching the end of their service life. The bridge’s walkway surface also will be illuminated more directly by a series of LED fixtures that will be attached to the bridge’s downstream pedestrian railings.
A system of color-programmable lights also will be installed to illuminate the bridge’s stone-masonry substructures.
The bridge’s architectural lights will be a fraction of the number of lights that are used on the three Commission bridges that have been fully outfitted with color-programmable LED lighting systems – the Northampton Street Bridge (the “free bridge) between Easton, PA. and Phillipsburg, N.J. and the New Hope-Lambertville and Uhlerstown-Frenchtown bridges.
New Flag Hanging Process
As part of the bridge lighting work, the Commission will assume the practice of hanging an American flag from the footbridge later this year.
While the Commission has permitted a flag to be suspended off the bridge’s downstream side for nearly 25 years, the cost has been borne by the Tinsman family and their Lumberville neighbors. (William Tinsman, the man who first placed a flag on the bridge after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, passed away in 2023.)
At a yet-to-be-determined date, the Commission will assume the cost of hanging a flag and the responsibilities of maintaining it and removing it when threatened by high-water levels.
The Commission originally said it would install a slightly larger flag – 12 feet by 18 feet – and reorient it to be displayed horizontally instead of the current vertical position. But that plan has been changed; the Commission now plans to hang a flag as currently sized and orient it in much the same vertical position where it can continue to be illuminated by a spotlight at the nearby Black Bass Hotel.
Schedule
If all goes according to plan, the contractor’s field preparation would begin later this summer. Some aspects of the work are likely to carry over into 2027. The Commission anticipates that the bridge will remain open while work takes place, with patrons routed around work areas marked by cones, flexible posts, and rope or tape.
Background
The Lumberville-Raven Rock Bridge Toll-Supported Pedestrian Bridge is a rare multi-catenary suspension structure. It was designed and constructed in 1947 by the John A. Roebling’s Sons Company – builders of the Brooklyn Bridge and producer of the parallel wire constructed cables at the Golden Gate Bridge. The bridge links the Raven Rock section of Delaware Township, N.J. with the Lumberville section of Solebury Township, PA. It is frequented by tourists, recreationists, and sightseers. It is a popular subject for area photographers and artists.
The bridge was preceded by a former vehicular bridge consisting of four covered wooden spans dating from 1856 and a single steel-truss span installed in 1904. That bridge was shut down for safety reasons (decaying wood) in 1944.
The river crossing originally was owned by the long-defunct Lumberville Delaware Bridge Company, which operated it as a private toll bridge for more than 70 years. The river crossing was jointly purchased by the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania in 1932 and freed of tolls in a transaction arranged by the former Joint Commission for Elimination of (Private) Toll Bridges – the predecessor agency to the current DRJTBC. The states conveyed ownership of the bridge to the DRJTBC in July 1987. The DRJTBC has since operated and maintained it with a share of the tolls it collects at its eight highway toll bridges. The bridge was last rehabilitated under a multi-faceted project during the late winter and early spring of 2013.
