OCEAN CITY — A significant rehabilitation project for the Route 50 Bridge is set to begin this month although additional traffic headaches are expected to be kept to a minimum.
Around 3 p.m. on Saturday, July 26, the Route 50 drawbridge got stuck in the up position following a routine opening and closing. The malfunctioning bridge almost immediately caused heavy resort traffic on a bust Saturday afternoon in late July to back up along Route 50 and the dominoes toppled backward to Routes 589, 90, 113 and 54.
The bridge remained stuck in the open position for about five hours until the State Highway Administration (SHA) private sector engineering firm, Covington, which routinely maintains and inspects the bridge, could get on the scene to analyze the problem. In an otherwise luckless situation, Covington’s chief engineer was vacationing in Ocean City at the time and began assessing the problem.
Around 8 p.m., with traffic backups now spiraling in every direction in and around the resort, the decision was made to hand-crank the bridge into the closed position to begin allowing vehicles to access the bridge in and out of the resort. Covington’s engineers determined the problem was caused by a cracked mount on the drawbridge’s drive shaft that would not allow the span to be lowered completely.
There are four mounts on the drawbridge’s mechanical system that allow the bridge to be raised and lowered. In the height of the summer season, a decision was made to make a temporary fix on the damaged mount to allow the bridge to be raised and lowered and SHA and town officials essentially crossed their fingers in the hopes the temporary fix would hold up for the remainder of the summer and early fall seasons.
SHA is now preparing to return to make the more permanent repair to the damaged mount and replace the other three to extend the life of the decades-old drawbridge.
SHA Media Relations Manager David Buck said this week the planning process is nearly complete and the actual work is expected to begin by the end of this month.
“The first order of business will be for crews to take measurements and do other preliminary work with minimal to no impact to traffic or boaters,” he said. “Within a few weeks of the initial measurements, we would begin the work, which would again only an include an off-peak lane closure on Route 50 and potentially a few bridge openings, but nothing out of the ordinary. We expect the actual work to last about a month or six weeks.”