Department of Transportation

Historic Bridge Survey

The New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT), using the services of a consultant, surveyed all bridges built before 1947 to assess their eligibility for listing in the National Register of Historical Places. The survey was mandated by the 1987 Surface Transportation and Uniform Relocation Assistance Act.

Historic contexts had to be developed for the survey. Then, using the National Bridge Inspection Standards' definition of a bridge as a structure at least 20 feet long, the consultant collected data on 2,064 bridges in New Jersey and recommended eligibility for approximately 250.

Staff from NJDOT's Environmental Services and the New Jersey Division Office of the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) reviewed these recommendations. The New Jersey State Historic Preservation Office (NJHPO) also commented on the survey.

Survey Specifics

This file includes extensive text from the consultant's survey report. It includes the methodology used, the historic development of New Jersey's transportation networks and bridge building techniques, a definition of bridge types used in the survey, each county's transportation history, a general bibliography and a county-specific bibliography.

Executive Summary and Data Fields

This section includes an Executive Summary of the survey and explanations of the structure and information for each survey data form field.

The files listed below are in Portable Document Format (PDF). You will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the files which is available at our state Adobe Acrobat Access.



Last updated date: September 23, 2019 1:43 PM