Somerset County awarded the Stirling Road bridge contract at $1,438,194, and the road closes in August

This is a county project on a county road, which is why it does not appear anywhere in Warren Township's own road program. The township has no role in the schedule and no lever on the timeline.

What is being built

The existing structure is a 19 foot span. It gets replaced with a single span precast rigid frame superstructure. The roadway across it widens from 33 feet to 40 feet to meet New Jersey Department of Transportation standards.

The county cites the existing bridge as rated in poor condition, with deterioration in the parapet, the deck and the superstructure. Those are three different parts of the structure. Parapet deterioration is the barrier at the edge, deck is the driving surface, and superstructure is what carries the load. Deterioration across all three is generally why a county replaces rather than repairs.

Funding comes from a fiscal year 2023 NJDOT Local Bridge Future Needs grant.

The closure

The segment of Stirling Road between Community Place and Dillon Court closes to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic. Driveway access is maintained for properties within the work zone.

Read the pedestrian part of that sentence twice if you walk or bike this stretch. A closure that includes pedestrians means there is no shoulder workaround and no temporary walkway. Five months starting August 3 puts the bulk of the closure across the fall, including the school year and the early part of winter.

Detours

• General traffic: Mountain Avenue, County Route 622, and Hillcrest Road, County Route 531
• Heavy vehicles over four tons: Valley Road 512, King George Road 651, Mount Bethel Road 651 and Mountain Boulevard 527

The split matters. The general detour routes cars onto Mountain Avenue and Hillcrest, while anything over four tons is pushed out to the larger arterials. If you live on or near the general detour, the traffic you notice starting in August is cars and light trucks rather than construction haulers.

Why $1.4 million for one bridge

The figure is a not to exceed total, meaning it is the ceiling on what the county pays under the contract rather than a fixed price. Bridge replacement costs are dominated by the things you do not see in the finished product: temporary works, utility coordination, stream protection during construction, and the structural elements below grade.

The widening from 33 to 40 feet is also a cost driver independent of the span itself. A wider roadway means wider approaches, longer parapets and more earthwork on both ends.

Stirling Road has had a rough year already

Two unrelated closures hit Stirling Road in February 2026, both on the segment between Valley Road in Long Hill Township and Mountain Avenue in Warren. One was for a car crash on February 4. The other was for utility work on February 6.

Neither had anything to do with the bridge project, and neither was at the bridge location. I mention them because residents who saw two February closures on the same road may reasonably assume the bridge work started early. It did not. The bridge closure has a scheduled start of August 3.

What to plan around

If Stirling Road between Community Place and Dillon Court is part of your daily route, August 3 is the date to build around, and roughly five months is the duration the county is describing. That is an approximation from the county, not a completion date, and bridge schedules move with weather and with what the contractor finds once the existing structure is opened up.

For properties inside the work zone, driveway access is maintained throughout, per the county. Access is not the same as convenience, and a five month construction zone at the end of your driveway is a real condition to plan for.

If you are buying or selling on that stretch this year, the closure is a disclosable condition of the location rather than a defect in any property. Say it plainly and early. Buyers find out anyway, and finding out late is what turns a known inconvenience into a renegotiation.