This video content is provided courtesy of the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC), owners of the original 16mm film footage from which it was digitized.
This film footage is provided to the public for historical and educational purposes. Any sale, reproduction or other use of this video footage and images without the DRJTBC’s written consent is prohibited.
This film footage was taken in the Easton, PA and Phillipsburg, NJ vicinity during the 1930s. It is among a series of forgotten film reels that were stored for decades in the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission's former administration building in Morrisville, PA. This 20-minute-long reel contains footage of the severe traffic congestion at the Northampton Street Bridge (aka Easton-Phillipsburg "free bridge") prior to the construction of a nearby toll bridge that opened in January 1938. The footage also shows traffic studies being conducted prior to the financing, design, and construction of the toll bridge -- originally named the Bushkill Street Bridge but renamed the Easton-Phillipsburg (Route 22) Toll Bridge after highway approaches were built in Easton in the 1950s. The traffic footage includes the Union Square approach in Phillipsburg, the bridge itself, and Northampton Street in Easton. It's unclear when the pieces of traffic footage were taken, but it clearly was on different dates. The footage of Northampton Street in Easton clearly dates to sometime after late 1932. The City of Easton repaved the street in the fall 1932 following the removal of trolley tracks that once led to the bridge. (Trolley service over the bridge ended October 31, 1931.) Traffic census footage on the bridge could have been taken at a variety of different times including 1931-32, 1934, and 1936. The portion of film depicting the center line markings of the prospective Bushkill Street Bridge appears to have been taken on or about the day that early excavation work for the bridge's Phillipsburg abutment began -- August 19, 1936. This work is being performed by engineers and maintenance forces for the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission (DRJTBC), which replaced the former Joint Commission for Elimination of Toll Bridges -- Pennsylvania-New Jersey in late 1934. Later film footage of a formal groundbreaking ceremony at the end of Bushkill Street in Easton, PA. was taken on November 14, 1936. Among the dignitaries are Congressman Francis E. Walter of Easton and Louis Focht, the DRJTBC's first chief engineer and superintendent. Focht also served as one of the first commissioners representing New Jersey. The remaining portions of the film footage shows early land-clearing work by Bean Inc., an Easton-based contractor that remains in business to this day, and subsequent early bridge substructure work.
More information on the traffic congestion footage: The former Joint Commission for Elimination of Toll Bridges -- Pennsylvania-New Jersey assigned engineers to survey the scope of vehicles using the bridge and the origination and destination of drivers in 1931 and possibly a portion of 1932. This eight-month study determined that traffic consisted of 59.25 percent local automobiles; 19.25 percent automobiles from New Jersey or Pennsylvania locations outside of Warren County, N.J. and Northampton County, PA.; 5.25 percent automobiles from states other than New Jersey or Pennsylvania; and 16.25 percent buses and trucks. The bridge was the lone vehicular crossing between Easton and Phillipsburg at this time. It was constructed in 1895 and completed in 1896, predating by more than a decade the mass production of automobiles affordable to middle-class families. Even in the depths of the Great Depression, the bridge was inundated by traffic on a daily basis. It was the Delaware River crossing point for the former east-west William Penn Highway. A 1936 report the DRJTBC issued to explain the need for the additional toll bridge stated that "...congestion frequently occurs, which ties up traffic from one-half to three-quarters of mile beyond the ends of the bridge when peak loads have occurred, or when traffic has been temporarily blocked during a busy period. Occasions have occurred when the traffic on the bridge has reached 32,486 vehicles in 24 hours." To put that traffic volume in perspective, the average annual daily traffic count for the bridge in 2021 was 16,500 vehicles.