$100M project planned for I-80 at water Gap
Tricky stretch of highway could get a bit easier
By: Bruce A, Scruton
Newton New Jersey Herald
USA Today Network
KNOWLTON - The S-curve area of Interstate 80 through the Delaware Water Gap will see yet another construction project, this time to build a new retaining wall to hold up the four-lane interstate and soften the winding route.
.....
Concept plans for the project, which a state Department of Transpiration official said would cost "in the neighborhood of $100 million," were unveiled publicly at the Knowlton Township school gymnasium on Thursday [09/26/2024] night with only about 20 people attending.
..... Design work for the project is being funded by New Jersey
while actual constitution will get federal funds.
.....
Department officials were on hand to go over easel displays of placards, giving a quick overview of the project, which is in the middle stages of preliminary design. The department will replace nearly a half-mile of retaining wall ranging in hight from just a couple of feet to nearly 30 feet.
..... Charles Henry, project manager for DOT, said the retaining wall holds backfill on which the four-lane highway was built. The section, from the bridge across the Delaware River to what is now Ext 4 on I-80, was opened in 1953 and was the first section of the interstate to open in New Jersey.
..... The highway now runs to I-95 near the George Washington Bridge into New York city and has become a major commuter route, unlocking a transformation of the Poconos region formal vacation area to suburbia.
..... The retaining wall is made up of more than four dozen concrete panels. The area behind them is filled with dirt and contains a system of drainage culverts that direct water from the slopes of Mount Tammany into the Delaware River.
.....
In the 70 years since the road opened, the panels have stood, but they have begun showing cracks, allowing water form the failing culvert system to leak through and creating more openings.
..... Henry said there have been two emergency repair projects in the past five years, to fix cracks in the wall. Highway engineers have determined that many of the panels are nearing failure, he said.
..... He said new construction techniques will allow for a temporary trestle to be built out over the Delaware River, from which constriction crews will have full access to replace the retaining wall.
..... Several photographs on the easel displays showed concert wall panels cracked horizontally and concrete spalling from the surface.
..... Also documented in photographs was the poor condition of the culverts meant to channel water to the river.
.....
Not part of the displays were photographs form previous DOT reports that showed water flowing up out of surface drains because of blockages in that system.
I-80 lanes could expand
..... The new wall will create space to expand there right shoulder of the east-bound lanes of the interstate to 12-17 feet.
.....
Currently, that space is only about 4feet. In fact, one of the four curves in that half-mile stretch provides just inches of room for two trailer trucks to make the curve driving side by side.
..... A concern raised at Thursday's [09/26/2024] public meeting was access for emergency and medial services to the scene of a crash in the area of the S-curves.
..... Currently, medics from Pennsylvania respond on mutual aid agreements with New Jersey emergency services.
..... The four curves also slow traffic to the point back-ups are a near daily concern - eastbound in the morning and westbound in the late afternoon - since I-80 is the major commuter route in the area.
..... Moving the retaining wall closer to the river would allow the highway shoulder to be widened and the curves softened, allowing better forward visibility," officials said.
..... There is a concrete Jersey barrier between the west and eastbound lanes.
.....
Easing the curves will also allow for a slightly higher average speed, DOT officials said at the meeting.
..... The posted speed limit is 50 mph - normal speed limit on I-80 is 65 mph. However, the design speed limit for one of those eastbound curves is just 35 mph.
.....
The officials were unable to say if there was any traffic or speed study done in the early 1950s when the road was being designed or if planners were able to predict the spread of suburbia along the corridor.
When will construction start?
..... Actual construction is still a couple of years away. The timetable in Thursday's [09/26/2024] display showed preliminary design work to be completed by next summer [2025] with final designing finished by the fall of 2026.
..... with that final blueprint in hand, the state - which is financing the project - can go to public bid for the work in the winter of 2026-2026 with construction scheduled too begin in the spring of 2027 and be completed in the fall of 2029.
..... The stretch of I-80 thought the water gap is site of a federally funded project to address the issue of fallen rocks from the face of Mount Tammany along the westbound lanes.