September 11, 2013 THE VILLADOM TIMES I • Page 7 Midland Park Lake Avenue Bridge set to reopen at month’s end The wait is over. Work on the Lake Avenue Bridge in Midland Park is sched- uled to be completed by month’s end, Bor- ough Clerk/Administrator Addie Hanna said last week. “We have been in constant contact with the county for updates, and finally County Engineer Joe Femia called to say their contractor has agreed to the September deadline,” Hanna said. “Now traffic in the center of town can get back to normal. The bottlenecking on Goffle Road and the extra traffic on Godwin have been a real prob- lem,” she added. More than 11,000 vehicles are estimated to cross the bridge daily. The two-block road is used as a shortcut between Goffle Road and Wyckoff and Godwin Avenue and Ridgewood and points beyond. The project, started two years ago, included the removal of the old bridge and the realignment of the replacement structure. Previously the stream flowed toward the bridge abutment and washed it out during heavy rains from time to time. There was once a culvert downstream and a pond, for which Lake Avenue is named. Work had to be coordinated with the A&P and Kuiken Brothers, the two busi- nesses most affected by the construction. All work had to conform to the Department of Environmental Protection’s restrictions for working within a stream. The previous brick and steel arch struc- ture was built in 1900 and was undersized in terms of the weight of the vehicles it could accommodate. Access was limited to 17 ton, three axle box trucks, and 35 ton five axle trucks. Those limits will now be 25 tons and 40 tons, respectively. Two con- crete sections were added in 1931, when a widening project also took place. In the 1990s, the A&P added a pedestrian bridge in the area to provide access to the super- market’s parking lot. The $1.3 million project was funded with New Jersey Department of Transportation moneys earmarked for repair or replace- ment of bridges rated structurally deficient, obsolete, or scour critical due to the amount of erosion that occurs around the structure of the bridge. Safety group being launched A new committee dedicated to safety is being launched in Midland Park. This group, to be known as the Citizens’ Safety Committee, will meet for the first time at Midland Park Borough Hall at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 17. The initiative, spearheaded by Coun- cil President Nancy Peet, will encourage citizens to keep the council up-to-date on a wide variety of safety concerns, includ- ing issues related to pedestrian and vehicu- lar safety and property maintenance. Peet plans to be the group’s coordinator for the time being, but ultimately expects to hand over the reins to a resident. (continued on page 25)