West Front Street Bridge To Be Closed For Two Weeks

The West Front Street Bridge will be closed for two weeks.

Utility relocation work and intersection reconstruction is scheduled to begin at 6 a.m. Wednesday, according to a notice from Monmouth County, posted on Middletown’s website.

Weather permitting, the work is expected to be finished by Aug. 26.

“We met the primary goal of having the new bridge and open in time for the Memorial Day weekend,” Freeholder Thomas A. Arnone said in a prepared statement. “The utility companies must now relocate their lines and equipment before the bridge contractor can work and complete the remaining work for the project.”

According to that notice:

On the eastern side of the bridge in Red Bank, the intersection of Shrewsbury Avenue, Rector Place and West Front Street will be also closed.

Eastbound traffic will be detoured from West Front Street to Bridge Avenue to Route 35 - across Cooper Bridge -- to Navesink River Road, to Hubbard Avenue to Carpenter Street to Applegate Street.

In Middletown, the intersection of Hubbard Avenue at West Front Street will be closed.

Westbound traffic will be detoured to Applegate Street to Foster Street to Hubbard Avenue to Navesink River Road to Route 35 south -- across Cooper Bridge -- to Bridge Avenue to Monmouth Street to Shrewsbury Avenue.

The new bridge is a 488-foot long steel girder bridge built to the north of the old bridge, which was built in 1921. The bridge spans the Swimming River between Middletown and Red Bank.