Paving To Begin On Scudder Falls Bridge

LOWER MAKEFIELD, PA — A new phase in construction of the new Scudder Falls Bridge will begin next week, as crews begin installing the concrete road deck.

Weather should be warm enough next week to allow crews to to pour, finish and cure concrete along the bridge's 1,855-foot upstream span, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission announced.

The bridge remains on track to open to traffic some time this summer, the commission said.

The current Scudder Falls Bridge will be reduced in the Pennsylvania-bound direction to a single lane at around 2 a.m. on Tuesday, March 12, for the work. The first pour of concrete is expected to take until early afternoon that day.

The single-lane travel patter on I-295 North will start just before the bridge in New Jersey and continue across the bridge into Pennsylvania. Backups are likely and motorists are encouraged to allow extra time that day.

More lane closures for the ongoing work could be announced before next week, the commission said.

The concrete paving will begin on the bridge’s Pennsylvania side and progress toward New Jersey. The process will involve 13 separate 10-hour pouring periods spread over at least four weeks, according to the commission.

The cured concrete sections are expected to be strength-tested in late April or early May.

About 135,000 cubic feet of concrete will be needed to complete the upstream span’s road deck. That works out to around 20 million pounds of concrete, the commission said.

Steel pans and rebar were installed across the entire bridge deck late last year in preparation for the pouring of the concrete deck. This followed the placement of the bridge’s steel support girders earlier in the year.

The bridge’s upstream span is the first of two, side-by-side bridge structures that will make up the Scudder Falls Toll Bridge.

When the new bridge’s first span opens this summer, it will carry I-295 traffic in both directions across the river. Tolls will be collected at highway speeds in the PA-bound direction only through an all-electronic tolling system consisting of an overhead gantry outfitted with E-ZPass tag readers and high-resolution cameras for Toll-by-Plate invoicing of non-E-ZPass-equipped motorists.

Higher tolls will be applied to non-E-ZPass transactions due to the additional costs of looking up vehicle registrations, sending bills and processing payments. The toll schedule for the Scudder Falls Toll Bridge, which was approved after public hearings in 2016, may be viewed here.

Once traffic is shifted onto the upstream span this summer, the current 59-year-old Scudder Falls Bridge will be closed and demolished. The new bridge’s second span will then be built immediately downstream of the first span.

The second span is expected to open to traffic by early 2021. Then, the downstream span will only carry New Jersey-bound traffic and the upstream span will be converted to carry Pennsylvania-direction traffic only.

The full project is scheduled to be finished later in 2021.