Troubled bridge in Atlantic County, NJ, closing again for about a year

A busy bridge in Atlantic County, which has had structural issues over the past several years, will be closing again for long-term construction.

Officials in the Borough of Folsom have announced that the 8th Street bridge, a relatively small wooden span, will close between Mays Landing-Blue Anchor Road (County Route 561 Spur) and 2nd Road starting Monday, September 16th.

Locals typically use 8th Street to quickly travel between the Penny Pot section of the Black Horse Pike in Folsom and the eastern portions of Hammonton without having to deal with Route 54.

The borough says they anticipate the bridge being closed for a little less than a year and a detour, which will likely use Route 54, will be in place.

According to data from bridgereports.com (no longer available online), that 62-foot-long span handled about 1,300 vehicles daily in 2017. To put that into perspective, a nearby bridge on the Black Horse Pike by Penny Pot Lake in Folsom handles about ten times that amount of traffic every day.

Issues discovered in 2021

In April 2021, county officials announced "extensive damage to the superstructure of the bridge" during an inspection and ordered the road closed.

Work continued into the summer of 2022 before it reopened with weight restrictions that September.

Since that time, bids have been submitted to replace the span. This latest round of work will be done by South State, Inc., a highway and utility contractor based out of Bridgeton.

8th Street Bridge closure in 2021

We took a look at the bridge while it was under construction in 2021. The captions under the pictures below are from that time.