much higher than
previously noted. Automobiles pay 75 cents.
Books of forty coupons can be purchased from the
toll collector for $20.00. This effectively
lowers the toll to 50 cents if the entire book
of coupons is used. (Even though they are paper
and not coin, these coupons are known locally as
"bridge tickets".) Bicyclists may cross for
free, but pedestrians are not allowed due to the
narrow lanes. An 11 foot height restriction
coupled with a weight restriction of four tons
precludes large RVs and trucks from crossing.
Although the bridge is within the Delaware Water
Gap National Recreation Area, government
employees pay the toll, unless responding to an
emergency with lights and sirens on. The bridge
is one of only two bridges that charges a toll
to enter New Jersey, along with the Delaware
River-Turnpike Toll Bridge on Interstate
276.Christmas Day is the only day of the year
which finds the toll booth unmanned; everyone
may cross for free. Dingman's Bridge is also
unique in that there is a single toll collector
who stands in between the single lanes of
traffic, collecting toll fees by hand.
The first bridge lasted 10 years, until a flood brought down a bridge upriver that then surged downstream and took out the Dingmans bridge. Two more spans would be built, and come down, before the Perkinses arrived and built the current one using iron from a railroad bridge on the Susquehanna River. Today it is one of 16 privately owned toll bridges in the country, according to the Federal Highway Administration, including two others in New Jersey: the Margate Bridge in Atlantic County and the Beesleys Point span in Cape May County.
Despite its history and quaint appearance, the Dingmans Ferry Bridge is not a backwater relic. Pike County, Pennsylvania, and Sussex County, New Jersey, once known for their Poconos resorts and dairy farms, are becoming sizeable -- and affordable -- bedroom communities. The most striking change has occurred in Pike County, where the population has risen to 48,507 in 2001, from 18,271 in 1980.
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