By Dan Moffett
Unhappy with the engineering advice they got for a street paving project two years ago, Manalapan town commissioners don’t want to make the same mistake again when they tackle the Audubon Causeway bridge project.
So, commissioners want to bring in Bridge Design Associates, the town’s engineering consultant, and ask more questions before deciding a course for action.
“We just don’t have enough options available to us,” said Commissioner Peter Isaac, who still wonders whether the bridge should be repaired instead of replaced. “We haven’t examined fully the repair options.”
The engineering consultants have given the commission two options so far: repair the bridge at a cost of about $528,000 and get up to 15 years of service, or, replace it for $760,000 and get 50 years.
“I know in the scheme of things, it’s much better to put up a 50-year bridge than to kick the can down the road until 2030,” Isaac said. “But I do think we need to have the facts.”
Mayor David Cheifetz said he wants to question the engineers about the feasibility of constructing a temporary structure to keep traffic moving across the causeway. He also wants to know whether it’s possible to replace the bridge with a simpler span — “maybe a roadway over two culverts.” And he said he just wants more details on the entire project.
“We don’t even know the right questions to ask. I’m as far from an engineer as you can possibly get,” Cheifetz said in calling for a session with the consultants at the March 25 commission meeting. “My concern is we’re not getting the best advice and the most complete advice from our engineers.”
Isaac and Commissioner Howard Roder alluded to the problems Point Manalapan residents are having with their newly resurfaced streets as evidence that the commission needs to get tougher with engineering consultants before the town approves projects.
In 2012, commissioners hired Delray Beach-based Hardrives Inc. to resurface all the roads on the Point, the first new asphalt there in some 50 years. But residents are complaining that the streets are already cracking in the same places they cracked before. Roder believes the streets weren’t prepared the right way before the asphalt went on, and he says the engineering consultants should have warned the commission about the potential problems.
“We wasted $250,000 of the taxpayers’ money — just threw it away,” Roder said. “We blew that money because of not asking the right question of an engineer. We don’t want to make the same mistake again and blow more taxpayer money on doing the wrong thing with this bridge.”
Town Manager Linda Stumpf told commissioners that, based on a similar project in Ocean Ridge, it could be possible to cut construction time down to about 11 months for replacement, and perhaps only 10 months if the existing span is repaired. But she said consultants warned that repairing it could actually wind up taking longer because workers often uncover problems they don’t expect.
“Many times the repairs are more time consuming than the replacement because of what they find when they’re doing it,” Stumpf said, “and the way they have to do it — from underneath when you’re chipping all this (debris) down with it.”
Stumpf said whether the commission chooses replacement or repair, it will still have to spend about $120,000 to replace the water lines running across the span.
“We’re talking about something here that’s going to inconvenience a lot of people for a long time, you’re talking about something here that’s going to have an impact on the community for decades,” Cheifetz said. “And I’m just not sure we have all of our options.”
In other business: Commissioners gave unanimous final approval (with Mayor Pro Tem David Thornton absent) to two amendments to the town’s comprehensive development plan. According to Cheifetz, the changes were housekeeping matters that “correct some inconsistencies in our zoning code.”
Gary Parr, the vice chair-man of the asset management firm Lazard Ltd. who bought the historic Casa Alva property in 2012, had complained to the town about the change of his property to residential status. But Parr did not contest the commission’s vote.
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