Century-Old Bridge Over Lubbers Run to be Replaced

The century-old bridge over Lubbers Run, which extends from Hopatcong to Byram, will soon be replaced.

The Lake Lackawanna Road Bridge was built in the late-1800s. After a widening in 1929 and minor repairs in 1990, Sussex County believes its time for a change and hopes to begin construction in July.

"At this point, after all those years of service, the condition has just deteriorated to the point where you can't repair it anymore," said Donald Scott, director of structural engineering services at Keller & Kirkpatrick, which helped the county plan the replacement.

Susan Delmar, the county's principal engineer, said the county received an engineer's estimate of $1.25 million for the project. Delmar also said the county hopes to award a bid by late April.

Delmar said the county applied for a state aid package, but wasn't sure yet how much would be used for the project, which is expected to finish in August.

The bridge's stone masonry walls are exhibiting "severe deterioration" and "rehabilitation is no longer a cost-effective option" to keep the bridge operational, the county's Department of Engineering said.

Scott agreed.

"It's most imminent that unless something's done at some point, they're going to collapse and fail," he said, referring to the bridge's spandrels, or the space between two arches. "This is really an attempt to avoid that situation and to try and be preemptive about it."

The county said it wants to carry the current bridge's architecture to the new one, using a prefabricated concrete arch structure and re-using existing arch rhinestones.

The county also said it hopes to use rustification strips and coarse sand formliners "to provide architectural interest to the exposed precast concrete spandrel walls and wingwalls.