A sometimes forgotten thoroughfare Rt. 5 is a narrow, pockmarked and antiquated state highway that snakes through several Bergen County boroughs and neighborhoods and was in significant need of repair. At first glance most would mistake Rt.5 for a local or county road, but this road is, in fact, owned by the state and is nearly 100 years old. Lacking attention for nearly 20 years, Rt. 5 finally ended up at the top of the NJDOT To‐Do list. New Jersey, like many other states, is saddled with an aging infrastructure and not enough money to stay ahead of the demand.
The Maisano’s and their company, New Prince Concrete Construction, was awarded the project and is no stranger to working in the densely populated cities and towns of central and northern New Jersey. The Hasbrook Heights based Construction Company just recently celebrated its 40th year in business and is all too familiar with working in these heavily congested and diversely populated communities. Any day of the week, John, Vincent or Pat Maisano could be found at the job site orchestrating solutions to the many complicated constructions issues that arose throughout the project.
The scope of the project would be the addition of 6’ of drivable highway and 8’ of pedestrian and emergency stopping shoulder in both directions, eliminating traffic congestion in the event of a vehicle breakdown. The 10 foot high bridge, originally constructed in 1910 over Delia Ave would be raised and replaced with a new structure, five feet higher than the original structure. Many trucks over the years have struck and/or become lodged under this bridge. More importantly, local residents in the low lying areas suffered as their homes flooded from an aging drainage system with insufficient capacity‐‐ they would finally get some relief with a newly designed, high volume Stormwater Detention System.
The NJDOT reached out to CMX Engineering, a premier, multi‐disciplined and diverse engineering firm with its main office in Manalapan, NJ. Once again CMX came through with unique solutions to Rt. 5’s distinctive problems. CMX’s professionalism and experience with this type of project helped to design a solution the NJDOT was looking for. Some of the engineering challenges included: The elimination of an existing, abandoned Public Service Trolley System, lane widening that will also provide for the addition of a new 8’ shoulder in both directions and the largest Detention System the New Jersey Department of Transportation has put out to bid as of this date.
The multi‐channeled 72” custom built detention system was needed to retain some 110K/ft3 stormwater runoff from Rt.5 and surrounding streets. The system would be situated some 60’ below the road surface. Another of the other unusual aspects of the project is the 135’ elevation change from the east to west end. In addition to the many other challenges, site preparation presented many challenges of its own‐‐bedrock, trees and utilities. There was an active 26,000 KV line over head which had to be relocated. Four acres of trees had to be cleared and 17,000 CY3 of excavated soil needed to be removed, because of limited space. “The soil had to be moved from the site and new backfill was brought in as needed at an additional expense” stated John Maisano. A large portion of the site consisted of Blue Stone, Heavy Rock and Shale, which made it difficult with the installation of the
temporary sheeting because it did not have enough toe, limiting excavation to 20’ at a time. New Prince was able to remove the rock by hammering with a Komatsu PC 228 Excavator with a Stanly Hydro Hammer. Blasting was out of the question because of the close proximity of homes and businesses, so it would be done with the brute force of excavators and bulldozers in the location of the detention system. One unusual circumstance was the abandoned PSE&G Trolley Bridge which had to be removed; it was being used as a shortcut by students to go to Palisades Park Junior & Senior High School.
The Detention System would be capable of retaining over 2MM gallons of run‐off from the surrounding streets. Due to the depth and limited access to the site, a Komatsu P.C. 400 Excavator to facilitate the lowering of the 9 ton sections of 72” pipe, some 30’ to the system’s bedding foundation. The Initial construction of the system began with a manifold comprised of five 72” pipes coming into the structure and a 30” pipe going out into a outlet control structure which had a 6” orifice and a Weir approximately 4’ higher than the invert to slow down the stormwater before it drained into the existing 36” pipe, which handles the storm water from the local road in the area. The manifold was cast in place due to it size. Installation began with 1 row of 72” pipes at a time. All 2000’ of pipe and 10 Tees were installed and backfilled in 6 weeks.
The installed Detention System, was comprised of five rows wide of 72” RCP at the west end and ten rows wide at the east end with custom fabricated Tees and caps manufactured by Oldcastle Precast Inc. at their Farmingdale and Croydon Facilities. All of the work was to be completed while maintaining an ongoing traffic flow. All of the water from Rt. 5 was to be retained. This road modernization would not only ease traffic flow on Rt.5 and below along Delia Road, it would also collect, detain and meter out the rain water from Rt. 5 and the surrounding streets, eliminating low lying flooding.
Challenges for this project, would be limited storage for materials, heavy traffic, and solid ledge rock. Limited space would require close communication with Oldcastle Pipe dispatch in order to keep the flow of the large diameter 72” CL‐4 pipe required for the detention system. Any delays in the installation would require shipments to be halted, as pipe was being installed as it was delivered to the job. Route 5 and Delia Blvd. bisects this northern New Jersey borough of Palisades Park, connecting Routes 1 & 9 to Rt.505 and River Road in Edgewater, which parallels the Hudson River. This 24MM dollar NJDOT project would require careful planning and logistics, as Rt. 5 east had to remain open to daily traffic. Even with the many adversities, the project is still scheduled to be completed well ahead of the May 2009 deadline.
