Trenton Road Bridge Reopens 1 Month Ahead Of Schedule

MIDDLETOWN TOWNSHIP, PA —The Trenton Road Bridge was expected to be closed until mid-September.

But motorists recently received some good news that the span reopened a little more than a month earlier than expected.

The Middletown Township Police Department announced the news of the reopening last week.

The bridge has been closed since May after PennDOT announced "high-priority" repairs to the heavily-traveled plan, stating it would be closed for four months.

The state Department of Transportation did not provide an update about why the bridge was reopened ahead of schedule.

The work on the 217-foot-long span, which was built in 1968, was expected to last through Sept. 11.

Nearly 12,000 vehicles pass over the bridge over Interstate 295 daily, PennDOT said.

The bridge repairs were part of a PennDOT $44.6 million bridge improvement project to perform "high-priority repairs" on several structures on Route 95 and Route 295.

Repairs to the structures under this project included replacing rocker bearings, frozen sliding plate bearing plate bearings, and deck expansion joints, cleaning and painting steel beams, repairing substructure concrete, and reconstructing bearing pedestals.

During the bridge's closure, motorists were detoured to Route 413 (Veterans Highway), New Falls Road, and Bensalem Boulevard.

Driscoll Construction Company, Inc. of Philadelphia was the general contractor on the project.