Cinco de Mayo this year will be particularly sweet for people who drive — or for the past six months haven’t driven — on Spring Valley Road in Hardwick. The road is reopening. And it will even have a dedicated passageway for big snakes.
After six years of patchwork repairs, sporadic closings and promises, Spring Valley Road, which links Stillwater Road and Millbrook Road, will welcome motorists. The reopening will also come as a relief to residents of Blairstown who have dealt with detours that frequently brought misdirected 18-wheelers onto local streets.
“This six-year endeavor is coming to an end,” Mayor Chris Jacksic said.
Work to elevate the 500-foot section of Spring Valley Road began in late January after one last delay caused by the late delivery of a prefabricated concrete culvert. The culvert itself was cause for a minor drama of its own after the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection required the installation of the six-foot culvert to allow water from wetlands adjacent to the road to pass underneath.
It will also allow safe passage for animals native to the area, in particular, bobcats and copperhead snakes. Jacksic and others from the area had been skeptical of any widespread existence of bobcats and copperheads, thought the mayor did say he got a report of a bobcat sighting in early April.
After years of flooding, often resulting in lengthy closings of that stretch of Spring Valley Road, the county filled in and elevated a passable single lane. The new road has been rebuilt at the same elevated level and the approaches were rebuilt to avoid any abrupt changes in the road.
The road closing, which severed Spring Valley Road near its midpoint, resulted in lengthy detours, mostly through Blairstown. To the frustration of officials in both municipalities, the Warren County-mandated detour directed drivers to head west from Spring Valley Road along Stillwater Road in Blairstown, then turn right at Bridge Street to Millbrook Road. From there, drivers could reach the northern end of Spring Valley Road.
This route, however, directed drivers through the notorious hairpin turns on Bridge Street. Buses frequently bottom out and have to be towed and tractor-trailers simply can’t negotiate the turn.
Local officials recommended an alternate route for trucks and buses during the detour that avoided the turns, while expressing relief Spring Valley Road will be open when camp season begins, when many charter buses descend on the area.
Joe brings decades of journalism experience to the Ridge View Echo, covering everything from local school boards to the U.S. Supreme Court. A former National Law Journal editor and Columbia Law School press officer, he now enjoys telling community stories in Blairstown, where he lives with his wife, Rose, and their two dachshunds.
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
- Joe Phalon, Contributing Writerhttps://ridgeviewecho.com/author/joe-phalon-contributing-writer/
