Broad Street in Hopewell Borough has reopened for business.
The street is now open for traffic following the construction of a county bridge that lasted for five months and was completed on July 12.
The local businesses are quite relieved over the news.
“It was particularly important to the businesses. The town is small enough that the businesses could not survive on just town business alone,” Hopewell Borough Mayor Paul Anzano said. “It is critical that we have people able to access the business community from the surrounding area.”
The bridge carries Hopewell-Rocky Hill Road over the tributaries of Beden’s Brook, east of the Hopewell Borough line.
“For the residents, it was sort of a mixed bag. It was difficult for the commuting, but some residents expressed that they liked that the bridge was closed because it was less traffic. Broad Street with the bridge open gets about 10,000 cars a day,” Anzano explained. “You can imagine the impact that the bridge closure had just on the volume of traffic. It was critical for workers going to and from and to get out of town, it was important that bridge be reopened as soon as possible.”
According to borough officials, the town learned about the county project a week before construction began.
“The bridge was posing a risk and needed to be fixed. We knew it needed to be repaired and replaced,” Anzano said. “We were unaware of when until we received a notice a week before the bridge was closed.”
During construction, Hopewell-Rocky Hill Road (County Road 518) was closed to traffic on a 24/7 basis.
“The most severe impacted business on the street was Michael’s Deli and Bakery. They are dependent on the daily traffic,” Anzano said. “Anyone stopping to grab something quick while making the commute was significantly impacted, as well as other businesses. While the other [businesses] were impacted, no one was impacted more than Michael’s Deli.”
During the bridge construction, motorists were directed to use Princeton Avenue and Carter Road, Cherry Valley Road and Province Line Road.
During construction local access was permitted up to the physical road closure point.
Officials also expressed relief that the bridge and street would be back open to traffic.
“The expectation is things will return to almost normalcy,” Anzano said.
