Starting April 18, 2016, Carter Road will be closed to through-traffic while the Mercer County Department of Transportation and Infrastructure replace the bridge on Carter Road (CR 569) over Shipetaukin Creek in Lawrence Township.
The construction coincides with an existing indefinite emergency truck detour around Route 206 after a parapet collapsed in February on the southbound side of the historic stone bridge over Stony Brook. (See also NJDOT closes Route 206 in Princeton for emergency bridge repairs.)
The detour for this project is that northbound traffic from US Route 206 will turn left on Province Line Road, left on Rosedale Road. For Southbound traffic, left on Rosedale Road, right on Province Line Road to right on Route 206.
Mercer County Executive Brian M. Hughes said the County is performing this work ahead of the State’s bridge repair project at Stony Brook on Route 206. “We fast-tracked the Carter Road bridge work so that motorists would not be inconvenienced by simultaneous projects in the area,” he said, adding that the County also reduced the duration of the Carter Road project from 150 days to 135.
Officially known as “Bridge No. 543.7,” the structure is located between US Route 206 and Van Kirk Road, Lawrence Township. The existing bridge structure carrying Carter Road over Shipetaukin Creek is a single-span, reinforced arch bridge supported on spread footings. The bridge is in poor condition due to the superstructure and substructure defects that resulted in the bridge categorized as structurally deficient with a sufficiency rating of 49.2 on a scale of 0 to 100, with 100 being the best and 0 being the worst.
The replacement bridge over Shipetaukin Creek will be a single-span structure supported on full height abutments. The superstructure will consist of adjacent precast pre-stressed concrete box beams with a variable depth reinforced concrete deck. The substructure will be founded on a spread footing. The structure will support two 12-foot-wide travel lanes, two 7-foot-wide shoulders and sidewalk along the west side. Cast-in-place concrete approach slabs will be constructed on both approaches to the bridge.
