The Bayonne City Council is expected to soon advance plans to construct a pedestrian bridge over Route 440, connecting the the 34th Street Hudson-Bergen Light Rail Station and The Peninsula at Bayonne Harbor.
Bayonne Bridge rendering via concept study by Ty Lin Engineering.
By Dan Israel/Hudson County View
The governing will vote next week on a resolution to authorize the city to enter into an agreement with New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) and Federal Highway Administration(FHA) to award a contract for consultant services for the bridge.
“For us, this is the final step, because the next thing is construction,” City Planner Sue Mack said at yesterday’s caucus meeting.
The contract for consultant services was awarded to Ty Lin Engineering for the preliminary engineering and design of the pedestrian bridge, totaling $749,997.26 for one year.
Planning, Zoning, and Development Director Joe Skillender told the council that this resolution acknowledged the agreement that the state entered into with Ty Lin Engineering to act as the project engineer.
Mack added that since the pedestrian bridge is being funded in part by federal grant funds, they pick the consultant. She said that the resolution was essential to approve the agreement before June 30, a key deadline for a variety of reasons.
According to Mack, this is the only consultant that will be involved in this. She said that once they complete their work on this contract, which will take less than a year, the NJDOT will give them the next contract to do the final engineering on the bridge.
In terms of a timeline, she said that while it will take about 18 months to complete engineering, the actual installation itself will only take a weekend.
The planned pedestrian bridge is pre-fabricated and will only take a few days to install. The city has already coordinated plans with the Bayonne Police Department to divert traffic through necessary detours during installation, Mack added.
According to Mack, she would have a more solid timeline by the next City Council meeting, underscoring the parameters set by the federal grant administered by the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority (NJTPA).
The project has $7.5 million dollars allotted to it in federal and state funds, including a $4.5 million federal grant, as well as an additional $2 million secured by U.S. Rep. Rob Menendez (D-8) and U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ), Mack told HCV after the meeting.
In addition, another $1 million was secured by former NJDOT Commissioner Francis O’Connor before his recent retirement. However, more funds may be needed, Mack said, as the city looks to apply for additional funding sources.
Thus far, the city has drawn down and expended about $551,000 of the federal funds for the concept study, and now this $748,997.26 for the preliminary engineering and design phase. Construction will be the next phase, after the project is sent out to bid.
In addition to the state and federal monies, in 2020 the city issued $10 million in bonds to build this bridge as well as another over Route 440 at 22nd Street, and to help replace the pedestrian bridge over the Light Rail at 25th Street- which is now mostly completed.
According to the concept development phase study for the pedestrian bridge also prepared by Ty Lin, four alternatives have been prepared for a pedestrian crossing at Route 440 in that location, including a plan for an at-grade crossing.
The other three options are for pedestrian bridges, including single span simple girder bridge, two span sleek concrete bridge, and a single span steel truss bridge.
The at-grade crossing would cost an estimated $801,000, the single span steel truss bridge would cost about $10 million, the two span sleek concrete bridge would cost an estimated $7.5 million, and the single span simple girder bridge would cost about $5.9 million.
While an at-grade crossing was included in the study, the city is moving forward with a pedestrian bridge in mind for the project location and has apparently already selected one of the designs although its not clear which one.
The planned pedestrian bridge was supposed to be built by New Jersey Transit in the late 1990’s as part of the light rail station, but was nixed since nothing was built at the Military Ocean Terminal at Bayonne (MOTBY) at the time.
The proposed pedestrian bridge will be located immediately south of the Goldsborough Drive intersection with Route 440.
The east landing of the bridge will be constructed within the existing grass island owned by the city located between Route 440 northbound, the CVS parking lot, and Goldsborough Drive.
The study found that, from 2019 to 2022, 133 crashes occurred in the project area including at those two intersection and resulting in 46 injuries.
These mostly involved vehicles, with 59 percent being same direction rear end accidents and 17 percent being same direction side swipe accidents.
Only one accident involved a pedestrian and resulted in their injury, the study states. This occurred when a vehicle turning right from Lefante Way onto Route 440 northbound struck a pedestrian crossing Route 440, highlighting a need for the pedestrian infrastructure.
The Bayonne City Council will convene for their regular meeting on Wednesday, April 15th, at City Hall, 630 Avenue C, at 6 p.m.