BRICK – Two Brick Township neighborhoods are slated to receive repaving and other road improvements to help with drainage.
At a recent Township Council meeting, members awarded a contract to Earle Asphalt, who submitted the lowest bid to pave and improve streets in the Bay Harbor section of town.
The Bay Harbor neighborhood is located in the southern part of town off of Hooper Avenue behind the Bay Harbor shopping plaza.
No specific timeline was discussed at the meeting as to when the paving project would begin.
Also at the meeting, council members passed a resolution that will allow streets in the Normandy Beach neighborhood to be raised.
The Township accepted a $401,859 grant from the State Department of Transportation for the elevation project, which plans to raise the height of the street as well as pave roads and alleviate flooding issues in the area.
The project focuses on the following roadways: Broad Avenue, Arrow Court, and Normandy Drive.
Normandy Beach is located on the barrier island portion of the township and is divided between Brick and Toms River. The two towns joined forces after flooding became so bad that school buses and delivery trucks were unable to drive through a main road. Residents say roads that used to flood a handful of times a year now flood anywhere from 20 to 30 times a year.
Back in 2021 when the Township first filed for funding, engineers said that Brick had already collected survey information for the neighborhoods to assess how high the roadway elevations can go. The goal is to raise them approximately 2.5 feet above sea level. Not only will the project reduce the frequency of street flooding, but when it does flood it will decrease the depth of the flooding.
According to officials, Toms River received funding first for the project. Now, Brick is set to go ahead to finish the roadwork in their territory.
Toms River hired a consulting firm to design the roadway elevation project in their section of the town. Brick is welcomed to hire the same firm to work with.
Brick Township has not disclosed a timeline for the project.
