The Allenwood-Lakewood Road (Squan) Bridge, Wall Township, N.J. (Credit: Google Earth)
A brick that connects Brick and Wall townships – and by extension, Ocean and Monmouth counties – has reopened after a closure that was in place for months.
Commonly called the Brice Park Bridge, the small span crosses the Manasquan River along Allenwood-Lakewood Road. It sits seconds away from the border between the two towns, north of the Brick reservoir on Sally Ike Road. The bridge was closed in late August after engineers found deficiencies in its decking during a routine inspection. The bridge is under the jurisdiction of Monmouth County.
Wall Township police confirmed the bridge, located next to Brice Park, reopened Thursday. News quickly began spreading via social media in Brick Township, where residents of the northern half of town frequently use the bridge to access both Monmouth County as well as the Garden State Parkway and Route 18.
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Also known as the “Squan Bridge” and “Bridge W-3,” the structure was installed in 1992, ostensibly as a temporary span to replace another bridge that had failed in 1985 after an overweight truck crushed a piling. That bridge, first installed in 1943, was moved to a county-owned maintenance yard, but was never restored or replaced. Construction on a new, permanent bridge had originally been slated to begin in 1997, but never materialized.
The National Bridge Inventory indicated 4,891 vehicles use the crossing every day.
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