Commuters ready for Route 140 overpass at I-295 to reopen after closure
CARNEYS POINT, N.J. (CBS) -- Traffic headaches are building in one Salem County community after an abrupt closure of parts of I-295 and a nearby bridge. NJDOT says they're working as quickly as they can to get things to reopen.
Commuters who work in the area say it can't come soon enough.
"Traffic at 5 o'clock at night is a mess here," Charles Lynch said.
Lynch works at the gas station at the foot of the Route 140 bridge now closed to all traffic.
"And downtown is a mess," Lynch said. "Both ways because people have to go this way and then that way and they get confused."
NJDOT says the emergency closures happened after a truck carrying an oversized load hit the bridge Tuesday which they determined is now not structurally sound.
"It hit it at a fairly good rate of speed and it created a lot of damage to the beam structures underneath the road surface above," NJDOT Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti said.
Lynch says he heard the sounds of the truck hitting the bridge.
"Stupidity is what it was," Lynch said. "The guy I don't know if he had his escorts with him, but he knew how high the load was. He knew how high the bridge was."
NJDOT says I-295 northbound is expected to reopen in "a few days" while the Route 140 bridge over the interstate will stay closed indefinitely.
"We have not yet been able to really look at a timeline because they're still in the throws of figuring out what we need to do to stabilize the bridge," Gutierrez-Scaccetti said.
Until things do reopen, Lynch says it'll be slow business for Sunoco and other nearby businesses.
"Slow business, very little business because all we're catching is maybe a couple northbound trucks or cars come in," Lynch said.
Detours are now diverting traffic from I-295 northbound to Route 130.
Drivers can also use the New Jersey Turnpike while road closures signs remain.