Mathis Bridge Expected To Reopen Before Memorial Day

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Sometime within the next four or five weeks, the concrete barriers will be removed. The orange barrels with the reflective tape will be packed up and carted away.

And with that, the Thomas A. Mathis Bridge that carries the eastbound lanes of Route 37 into Seaside Heights will reopen for traffic for good, completing a three-year project rehabilitate the 65-year-old bascule bridge.

The Toms River Office of Emergency Management announced in mid-March that the bridge will reopen by May 6, but Dan Triana, spokesman for the state Department of Transportation, which is overseeing the project, did not give a firm date.

"The Route 37 Mathis Bridge over Barnegat Bay project is on schedule, and is expected to be complete with all three lanes reopened to traffic before Memorial Day this year," Triana said. "NJDOT will provide more specific information as we get closer to the reopening."

He said the final work being completed on the $56.4 million federally-funded project includes final roadway work on the bridge deck, and a newly rebuilt bascule, which is the movable span. New four-bar railings replacing the previous parapets will be in place, a new bridge operator’s control desk and new electrical components that operate the movable bridge and cameras will be installed, and new warning gates and lights will be in place, he said. New bridge approaches and the cast-in-place anchor spans will be complete.

The project started in the spring of 2015, with closures each winter from Nov. 1 to April 30 each year.

Photo by Karen Wall, Patch staff