Broken Wildwood Crest Bridge Means BIG Problems

The Middle Thorofare Bridge, a key route connecting Wildwood Crest to Lower Township/Cape May, has been shut down due to a motor failure, with no immediate timeline for reopening.

This is clearly a problem for us down here in Wildwood Crest and Cape May as this bridge is a major connection for transit between Diamond Beach and Cape May but also a big problem for businesses that are located along this route.

The Wildwood Video Archive stopped by the bridge this week to film a drone video via our seagull to show you what the bridge currently looks like.

You can watch that video at the bottom of this article.

One big thing to clarify. The Wildwoods are accessible by three different bridges.

The Middle Thorofare Bridge is the most Southern bridge on the island. You can access it via Exit 0 of the Garden State Parkway. This isn’t the most traveled bridge in and out of the island thought.

Those who take Exit 4 to the Wildwoods traverse into the island on the George Redding Bridge. Those coming from Exit 6 into North Wildwood heads over via the Grassy Sound Free Bridge. (not to be confused with the Grassy Sound toll bridge which leads to Stone Harbor.

This means that if you are planning to come to the Wildwoods during this time, you will not really be affected by the Middle Thorofare Bridge as you can drive off the island in Wildwood or North Wildwood to get to Cape May.

At 10 a.m. on Saturday, the drive shaft motor responsible for opening the bridge on demand malfunctioned.

After conducting several tests, bridge electrical engineers determined that the motor is beyond repair and must be replaced.

The Middle Thorofare Bridge was opened in June of 1940 by The Cape May County Bridge Commission. The Commission owns most of the bridges that are on Ocean Drive including bridges like Townsend’s Inlet and Corsons Inlet.

The technology in these bridges has been aging for quite some time and a few years back a plan was put in place to replace the Middle Thorofare Bridge. This project, which sits at $250 Million, would not only replace the bridge with a taller one, but it would also replace all the smaller bridges between Exit 0 and Two Mile.

In order to get this bridge moving, knowing that it would take several years of planning, the Commission did a refurbishment of the Middle Thorofare Bridge.

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The summer bids for the new Middle Thorofare Bridge were supposed to be submitted but we haven’t heard yet if bids were accepted. If they were we could have seen construction start in the spring of 2025.

Since this is such an old bridge, most of the parts are outdated. This is a problem since many of the parts haven’t been produced in over 40 years.

Due to this massive gap in production, finding parts are hard. As it pertains to a timeline, it is up in the air on when this bridge can be back open for visitors.

Talking to a few folks at the site, the project could be fixed as soon as a month if parts are available. If not we could be looking at a very long 2-4 month window where this bridge will not be open to car.

The bridge will be open to the boaters since Cape May Fisheries is one of the largest in the state of New Jersey.

Those who are driving on Ocean Drive heading toward the bridge will be greeted with signs to let visitors know that the bridge is out. Google has only just today added in a warning that the bridge is temporary out of order. This will hopefully let people know that the bridge is not in working order.

Below is our drone video of the Middle Thorofare Bridge. Before you watch please subscribe as we try to hit 100,000 subscribers.