Drivers using Morris Avenue in Denville Township should be finding new routes to and from work already, as Morris County has announced the closing of the road to all traffic in order to facilitate the replacement of the deck of the Morris Avenue Bridge crossing Beaver Brook for the next two months.
While the bridge over Beaver Brook, itself, may not be a familiar name to most, the concrete road bed of the single span, prestressed concrete bridge that was built in 1958 has seen its fair share of deterioration, with multiple patch jobs over the years proving to be insufficient at dealing with the persistent potholes in the span, which have caused county officials to decide that replacing the deck, which is currently scheduled to be done in entirety, is the more economical choice than further repairs.
County crews working on the deck replacement are estimated to work Monday through Friday, from 7:00 AM to 4:00 PM, throughout the duration of the closure, which will last for roughly two months, with completion of the replacement projected at some point near the beginning of October, assuming work will not be interrupted by adverse weather.
This means long detours for the approximately 3 miles of Morris Avenue in Denville, as a signed, though winding, route around the closure is in place of Ford and Kitchell Roads for civilian passenger vehicles. Heavy commercial traffic, however, has a vastly different route in the works, as trucks will be directed to take I-80 as an alternate to entirely bypass the closure, which would prove to put far too much strain on local roads to handle truck traffic if redirected as part of the detour taken by passenger cars.
While the two month closure may pose some issues for local residents, Morris County has taken care to ensure that the Morris Catholic High School in the area will see no disruption to operation or access, which is important to both students and faculty for the start of the upcoming school year, while all local businesses can rest assured that their access to the area will not be impeded for the duration of the works, unlike traffic attempting to cross the bridge itself.
With a cost of 352,725 dollars, the entirety of the funding for the deck replacement comes from Morris County rather than any state or federal sources, and the contract for the replacement has been given to CMS Construction of Plainfield to finish the job in a timely manner as soon as possible.
While not an insignificant sum for a local road repair, replacing the deck of the Beaver Brook Bridge can be seen as a much more cost effective option than continuing to perform repairs to a persistently troublesome stretch of road, as the repeated damage claims and repairs for potholes that inevitably crop up on the span are bound to add up to a far greater expense over time, and will inevitably prove a nuisance to both county workers and local drivers for as long as the repairs continue to be made.
For the next two months, the residents of Denville and any drivers passing through the township on Morris Avenue will need to contend with the inconvenience of a closure of all traffic on the road, including detours, but with the completion of the replacement of the deck of the bridge over Beaver Brook, the span itself will last far longer than it otherwise would have, on a bridge foundation that, for all intents and purposes, has proven itself to be entirely sound aside from the potholes in the road surface.
