By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
Motorists using the Garden State Parkway’s Ocean View service plaza in Cape May County are confronted by a dizzying array of concrete barriers, construction cones and traffic signs on both the northbound and southbound sides.
Curiously, though, there is no active construction going on.
Sea Isle City Mayor Leonard Desiderio is frustrated that the project has come to a standstill. Motorists are forced to squeeze through concrete construction barriers as they merge onto the high-speed lanes of busy summer traffic on the Parkway – a potentially dangerous scenario, he said.
“People have been telling me, ‘Lenny, someone’s going to get killed,’” said Desiderio, who has been focusing on the project because the Ocean View service plaza is located close to the Parkway’s Exit 17 leading to Sea Isle.
Desiderio emphasized that he wants the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, the Parkway’s operating agency, to wrap up the project as soon as possible.
But he will have to wait a while longer.
Tom Feeney, a spokesman for the Turnpike Authority, said that supply chain disruptions have delayed the delivery of electric cable and light fixtures for the project, bringing work to a halt. There has also been a delay in relocating the utility lines for the project.
“The project has encountered several delays beyond the control of the Turnpike Authority or the contractor,” Feeney said in an email Thursday.
The electric cable delivery is now expected in mid-September. Work will resume then. The utility line relocation by Atlantic Electric is expected to take place at the end of September, he said.
If that schedule holds, the construction barriers would be removed in early October, with full completion of the project by late October, according to Feeney.
Ocean View is one of nine service plazas along the Parkway slated for improvements to their entrance and exit ramps. The total cost for all nine plazas is $28 million, with Ocean View’s share being $5 million.
The work includes lengthening the acceleration and deceleration lanes, improving roadway drainage, building new stormwater management basins, upgrading electric service, converting to LED lighting, and replacing guiderail, along with milling and paving, Feeney said.
The Ocean View service plaza is only about a mile from the Parkway’s Exit 17 to Sea Isle. In its current configuration, the interchange is split into two parts.
Exit 17’s off-ramp on the southbound side of the Parkway merges with Sea Isle Boulevard. For motorists wanting to access the Parkway’s northbound lanes, they must follow Sea Isle Boulevard out of town and then hop on a separate on-ramp.
However, there is no southbound access to the Parkway at Exit 17 off Sea Isle Boulevard. In addition, there is no exit to Sea Isle off the Parkway’s northbound side. Sea Isle lacks an off-ramp northbound at Exit 17.
To access Sea Isle off the Parkway’s northbound side, motorists must take Exit 13 into neighboring Avalon and then crawl along local roads. The trip through Avalon eventually leads to the Townsends Inlet Bridge, crossing over into Sea Isle’s southern tip.
One shortcut that is known by local motorists is to drive a little farther north on the Parkway and then make a U-turn at the Ocean View service plaza. That gives them access to the Parkway’s southbound lanes and the Exit 17 off-ramp to Sea Isle.
There are tentative plans to convert Exit 17 into a full four-way interchange. It is one of the proposed projects in a massive $24 billion capital plan for both the Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike.
No timetable has been announced by the Turnpike Authority for starting and completely the Exit 17 project.
Desiderio wants more information about the Ocean View project and Exit 17’s proposed conversion into a full interchange. He has also called on the Turnpike Authority to formally name a small memorial located at the Ocean View service plaza in honor of Cape May County’s veterans.
In addition to serving as Sea Isle’s mayor, Desiderio is the director of the Cape May County Board of Commissioners, the elected body that oversees the county government.
Desiderio said that he is thinking about traveling to the Turnpike Authority’s headquarters in Woodbridge, N.J., to ask questions about the Ocean View project and Exit 17 during one of the agency’s board meetings.
