Lighting, Security Upgrades Scheduled At Lumberville-Raven Rock Bridge

NEW HOPE, PA — The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC) on Tuesday announced that it will outfit its Lumberville-Raven Rock Toll-Supported Pedestrian Bridge with security cameras and color-programmable “node lighting” under a project that is expected to begin this summer and extend into early next year.

The commission will also assume responsibility for the displaying of an American flag on the bridge, a tradition initiated by the late William E. Tinsman after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The commission plans to display a slightly larger flag, reorienting its placement below the bridge.

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Entitled the Lumberville-Raven Rock Toll-Supported Bridge Architectural Lighting & Electronic Surveillance/Detection System Project, the current plan is to keep the bridge open to walkers while work takes place. The project will make the following changes:

New Bridge Lighting

The structure will be outfitted with a color-programmable LED fixture at each upper turnbuckle connection along the bridge’s primary steel-wire ropes, which are strung between support towers and attached to anchorages at each end of the bridge. The individual “node lights” will differ from the architectural lighting systems on commission truss bridges by collectively highlighting only the sweeping arcs of the suspension bridge’s distinctive multi-catenary profile along the river.

The existing light fixtures attached to the bridge’s towers will be removed and replace with 2700 Kelvin LED fixtures. The tower fixtures cast light down onto portions of walkway. The current existing fixtures are energy-inefficient, costly to operate, and reaching the end of their service life. The bridge’s walkway surface also will be illuminated more directly by a series of LED fixtures that will be attached to the bridge’s downstream pedestrian railings.

A system of color-programmable lights also will be installed to illuminate the bridge’s stone-masonry substructures.

New Flag

The commission will continue the tradition of hanging an American flag from the footbridge, but there will be some changes moving forward.

While the commission has permitted a flag to be suspended off the bridge’s downstream side for nearly 25 years, the cost has been borne by the Tinsman family and their Lumberville neighbors. (William Tinsman, the man who first placed a flag on the bridge after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, passed away in 2023.) At a yet-to-be-determined date, the commission will assume the cost of hanging a flag and the responsibilities of maintaining it and removing it when threatened by high-water levels.

The commission plans to install a slightly larger flag – 12 feet by 18 feet – and reorient it to be displayed horizontally instead of the current vertical position. The new flag will be double-sided, enabling its union (the blue field with stars) to be positioned to the top left regardless of whether the observer is upstream or downstream of the bridge.

The new, larger flag will be suspended from the same location on the bridge’s downstream side where it can continue to be illuminated by a spotlight at the nearby Black Bass Hotel.

Security Cameras

The commission also plans to outfit the bridge with a handful of security cameras under the project. The cameras would have the ability to monitor the river upstream, downstream, and below the bridge. Cameras also would be situated for purposes of monitoring the walkway itself. The cameras would better enable the commission to confirm reported incidents and potentially speed responses to capsized watercraft, suicide attempts, or pedestrians struck by bicyclists who fail to dismount and walk across the bridge.

Details of the camera installations are still being formulated with respect to the final number and locations. The bridge is the only structure in the commission’s transportation network that does not have any kind of remote monitoring capability for emergencies, incidents, and high-water events.

Schedule

The commission is preparing to put the project out to bid shortly. If all goes according to plan, field preparations would begin in the summer with some aspects of work possibly continuing into next year.

The commission anticipates that the bridge will remain open while work takes place, with patrons routed around work areas marked by cones, flexible posts, and rope or tape.