Skip to main content

Beesley's Point Bridge in Great Egg Harbor, New Jersey

Image
By
For those who take the Garden State Parkway down to Cape May, you may notice a bridge close by as you cross the Great Egg Harbor as you cross out of Atlantic County. That is the Beesley's Point Bridge, which connects Somers Point with Cape May County on US 9. Currently, the bridge has been closed down to vehicles due to unsafe traffic with said traffic routed on the nearby Garden State Parkway, but there are some quirks that makes this crossing a treasure. On a mild, yet windy February weekend in 2005, I had the unique opportunity of taking a walk down Beesley's Point Bridge and discovered some of the quirks of this private tolled crossing.

US 9 guide sign mentioning the weight limit of the bridge. Judging by what I saw from the bridge, that may be pushing it.

Looking southbound on the bridge. There are also a number of ads that dot the landscape of the bridge. I wonder how much one of the ads costs.

A jersey barrier serves as a blockade to most traffic at the south end of the bridge.

More space for advertisements.

A view looking north into Atlantic County.

Now looking north on the bridge, here's a good view of Great Egg Harbor and Somers Point. You can see some of the despair that the bridge is in. In other spots, you can see gaps in the pavement so deep you are actually looking at the water. I am not sure how effective those ads are on a closed bridge.

The toll booth for the Beesley's Point Bridge is in the middle of the bridge. The car you see is likely owned the bridge tender. Seems that the company that owns the bridge is still employing bridge tenders while the bridge is closed.

The Beesley's Point Bridge is pretty close to the span for the Garden State Parkway. That's Ocean City, NJ, in the distance.

As the Beesley's Point Bridge is a private bridge, the State of New Jersey is not in charge of maintaining it. The changeover is marked here.



A hole in the pavement.

Another hole in the pavement. Hello, water!

There is a power plant nearby along the southern shores of Great Egg Harbor. The curbs for the bridge are made of wood.
Signage listing the toll schedule for the Beesley's Point Bridge. If a passenger car were to take the nearby Garden State Parkway, only a 35 cent toll would be levied.

A old sign photo taken by Alex Nitzman of AARoads, taken in June 1997.
 As of the time of this blog post (August 16, 2016), the bridge is undergoing demolition. I had another chance to visit the Beesleys Point Bridge in December 2010. I don't believe that the bridge had ever reopened after my 2005 visit. Here are a few photos from that visit.



Labels:
Location: 9 Harbor Rd, Marmora, NJ 08223, USA

Comments

Anonymous said…
ARE YOU ALOUD TO CRAB ON THERE AND IS IT SAFE FOR A SOON TO BE 3 YEAT OLD
7:58 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Trimmer Springs Road (Fresno County)

By
Trimmer Springs Road is an approximately forty-mile rural highway located in Fresno County.  The corridor begins near in California State Route 180 in Centerville and extends to Blackrock Road at the Kings River in the Sierra Nevada range near the Pacific Gas & Electric Company town of Balch Camp. The roadway is named after the former Trimmer Springs Resort and was originally constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.  Trimmer Springs Road was heavily modified and elongated after construction of Pine Flat Dam broke ground in 1947.   Part 1; the history of Trimmer Springs Road Much of the original alignment of Trimmer Springs Road was constructed to facilitate access to the Sanger Log Flume.   The  Kings River Lumber Company  had been established in 1888 in the form of a 30,000-acre purchase of forest lands in Converse Basin.  This purchase lied immediately west of Grant Grove and came to be known as "Millwood."  The co...
Post a Comment
Read more

When was Ventura Avenue east of downtown Fresno renamed to Kings Canyon Road? (California State Route 180)

By
California State Route 180 was one of the original Sign State Routes designated in August 1934.  The highway east of Fresno originally utilized what was Ventura Avenue and Dunlap Road to reach what was then General Grant National Park.  By late year 1939 the highway was extended through the Kings River Canyon to Cedar Grove.   In 1940 General Grant National Park would be expanded and rebranded as Kings Canyon National Park.  The Kings Canyon Road designation first appeared in publications circa 1941 when the California State Route 180 bypass of Dunlap was completed.  Kings Canyon Road ultimately would replace the designation of Dunlap Road from Dunlap to Centerville and Ventura Avenue west to 1st Street in Fresno.   The Kings Canyon Road would remain largely intact until March 2023 when the Fresno Council designated Cesar Chavez Boulevard.  Cesar Chavez Boulevard was designated over a ten-mile corridor over what was Kings Canyon Road, remaini...
Post a Comment
Read more

Interstate 99 at 30

By
When it comes to the entirety of the Interstate Highway System, Interstate 99, when fully completed, is nothing more than 161 miles of a roughly 48,000-mile system (0.3% of total length).  Yet, to more than just a handful of people, the number '99' rubs them the wrong way. Interstate 99 follows the path of two US Highway Routes - US 220 from the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Bedford north to Interstate 80 and then to US 15/Interstate 180 in Williamsport.  It then follows US 15 from Williamsport north to Interstate 86 in Corning, New York. Interstate 99 runs with US 220 through much of Central Pennsylvania. (Doug Kerr) US 220 from Cumberland, Maryland to Interstate 80 and US 15 north of Williamsport were designated part of the Appalachian Highway System in 1965.  Construction to upgrade both corridors progressed steadily but slowly.  In 1991, the two corridors were included as a National High Priority Corridor.  The route from Cumberland to Corning consisted of High P...
Post a Comment
Read more