Bleaf, I remember the picture you took under the Anderson St Bridge and now this action.
http://www.northjersey.com/news/Bus_detour_in_place_for_Teanecks_Anderson_Street-Cedar_Lane_Bridge.html__________________________________________________________
Buses restricted from Teaneck's Anderson Street-Cedar Lane BridgeMonday, September 24, 2012 Last updated: Monday September 24, 2012, 7:49 PM
BY KAREN ROUSE
STAFF WRITER
The Record
Read NJ Transit's advisoryNJ Transit was scrambling Monday to re-route buses away from the Anderson Street Bridge that connects Hackensack to Teaneck and notify passengers of detours after Bergen County officials suddenly placed a 15-ton weight limit on the bridge.
A NJ Transit bus weighs 17 or more tons, John Durso, Jr., a spokesman for the agency said late Monday.
“Then you put people on there, it becomes even higher,” he said.
The transit agency was notified Friday that a possible route change would be needed, he said. Then after 3 p.m. on Monday, the county informed NJ Transit that it was moving forward with the weight limit.
County Spokeswoman Jeanne Baratta said the weight restriction is the result of a “directive from the state.”
“The state did their annual review and they said that it’s a priority one bridge, which means it needs extensive repairs,” Baratta said. “In order to answer the state in a timely fashion – and because it has 30,000 to 50,000 cars per day, it’s not a bridge where we could shut the whole thing down.”
Instead, Baratta said the county decided to lower the tonnage permitted across the bridge while design work is done “to see how we’re going to be able to do the repairs and not shut down the bridge.”
Joe Crifasi, director of public works and deputy county administrator for Bergen County, said NJ Transit officials were notified at least a week ago that buses would have to be detoured away from the bridge. He said a consultant from the state Department of Transportation had issued a report on the integrity of the bridge on Sept. 14.
“They found areas throughout the bridge that they deemed necessary for rehabilitation” Crifasi said.
Crifasi said NJ Transit, Hackensack Police and Teaneck Police were all notified. The county also posted signs around the area to warn motorists of the change.
“We let them know about this letter stating that the bridge needed attention and we would be making modification of the traffic pattern,” he said.
The 41-year-old, four-lane bridge is 927 feet long and owned by Bergen County, according to public records.
As of June, it had a sufficiency rating of 54.3 on a scale of 1 to 100. Such a rating puts the bridge in a category of needing rehabilitation.
Joe Dee, spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, said weight restrictions are put in place when the load-carrying capacity drops below a certain level, which could happen for a variety of reasons, including deterioration under the structure. “It could still carry loads, just not as much as it used to,” he said.
He said he did not have specific details on the Anderson Street Bridge late Monday.
Durso said approximately 400 buses cross the bridge on weekdays. The detour will impact roughly 2,000 customers, who can expect delays of at least 10 minutes in each direction due to the detour routing through the Route 4 corridor.
The impacted routes are numbers 83, 157, 168, 175, 178, 182, 751, 753, 755, 772 and 780 are impacted.
Customers that use those routes will need to prepare for the following changes:
ä Buses from Teaneck traveling westbound toward Hackensack (leaving their routes on Cedar Lane at River Road) will travel northbound on River Road to Route 4 West to southbound Hackensack Avenue to Anderson Street at River Street. Buses will then resume their regular routes.
ä Buses from Hackensack traveling eastbound toward Teaneck (leaving their routes on Anderson Street at Hackensack Street will travel northbound on Hackensack Avenue to Route 4 East to southbound River Road in Teaneck. Buses will then resume their regular routes.
Information on NJ Transit detours can be found at
www.njtransit.com or by calling 973-275-5555.
Staff Writer John Ensslin contributed to this report. Email: rouse@northjersey.com
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