By DONALD WITTKOWSKI
From drivers speeding along Landis Avenue to the frightening sight of a young daredevil jumping off the Townsends Inlet Bridge, it was not the quietest of summers for local homeowner Regina Lewallen.
Lewallen appeared at a City Council meeting Tuesday to complain about motorists routinely breaking the 25-mph speed limit on Landis Avenue from the base of the bridge entering Sea Isle City all the way down to 63rd Street near the Acme shopping complex.
She urged city officials to install more warning signs to “at least make people slow up a little bit.”
In an interview after the Council meeting, she said the speeding traffic this summer was probably as bad as she’s ever seen. She lives at 74th Street and Landis Ave.
Among the pedestrians who were nearly hit by cars was an elderly woman, about 80 years old, who was using a cane to help her across the street, Lewallen said.
“Of the other people that I’ve seen crossing the road, several were near-misses,” she said in the interview.
Showing his concern, Mayor Leonard Desiderio assured Lewallen that Sea Isle police officers armed with radar have been ticketing speeders in the Townsends Inlet section in the south part of the island. He promised that the speeding crackdown will continue.
Echoing Desiderio’s comments, Police Chief Anthony Garreffi said speeders should expect to be pulled over and given tickets.
“Summonses were issued and continue to be issued,” he said.
After the meeting, Lewallen said she believes that the police department and Garreffi are doing all they can to enforce the speeding laws during the bustling summer tourism season.
“I know they’re trying,” she said in the interview. “It’s been bad. But they are ticketing people.”
Also during her public comments to City Council, Lewallen described a harrowing scene in which a teenage boy jumped off the Townsends Inlet Bridge and barely avoided striking a boat in the water below.
“We were all yelling, ‘Get off the bridge,’ and called 911,” she said.
The boy was with a group of about 10 kids in their early teens gathering on the bridge, Lewallen estimated. The incident happened on Saturday, Aug. 13. Despite the close call with the boat, the boy avoided injury and safely swam to shore during low tide, she noted.
Councilman Jack Gibson was astonished that anyone would jump off the bridge, a major structure dating to 1939 that carries traffic between Sea Isle and Avalon over Townsends Inlet. The inlet serves as a high-speed connection of sorts for boats traveling between the bay and ocean because of its swift currents and deep water.
Garreffi, who was formally appointed Sea Isle’s new police chief on Sept. 1, said both the Sea Isle and Avalon police departments have received calls about people jumping off the bridge.
“It is a dangerous thing to do,” he said.
Townsends Inlet Bridge is one of five toll bridges operated by the Cape May County Bridge Commission along the scenic Ocean Drive between Ocean City and Cape May.
The bridge includes a pedestrian walkway and bike path that provide stunning views of the bay and ocean.
