Excitement Builds for Campground Shuttle

By Donald Wittkowski All aboard … the Campground Shuttle. Well, that’s not its official name, but new shuttle service that will connect Sea Isle City with New Jersey’s largest campground starting in July is expected to be a popular alternative to driving this summer. The Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization and the Ocean View Resort campground in neighboring Dennis Township are launching the shuttle in partnership with the Sea Isle Jitney Association. Chamber President Christopher Glancey explained that the shuttle will bring more visitors to town, boosting business at Sea Isle’s bars, restaurants and retail shops. It will also save campground guests from the hassles of driving to Sea Isle, hunting for parking and possibly fighting traffic on the way back to Ocean View Resort in the busy summer tourism season. “It sounds like a win-win for everybody,” Glancey said. Glancey gave an update on the shuttle service during the Chamber’s monthly board meeting on Tuesday. Plans for the shuttle were announced last week. Shuttles will operate on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to midnight starting July 1 through Aug. 14. The 13-passenger jitneys will run about every half hour, picking up riders at the front entrance of Ocean View Resort and dropping them off at the Sea Isle City Welcome Center or a few blocks away in the downtown district on John F. Kennedy Boulevard. The fare will be $2 one way, or $4 round trip. The Sea Isle Jitney Association will operate the campground shuttle on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 5:30 p.m. to midnight. (Photo courtesy of visitsicnj.com) There had been discussions about running the shuttle on a Thursday-through-Sunday schedule, but other campgrounds weren’t willing to kick in the $5,000 each that would have been needed to subsidize weekend service. In order to run shuttles on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the Chamber and Ocean View Resort will each pay a $3,000 subsidy. “This is going to be very positive,” Glancey said. “The business community is excited to get the extra visitors coming from off-shore. The campground is excited to offer an extra amenity to its guests so they can travel back and forth to the island.” Already, at least one other campground has belatedly expressed interest in joining the shuttle service. Glancey, however, explained that the jitney routes and stops have already been planned out for the summer season and it is simply too late to change them at this point. Chamber members believe the shuttle will grow in coming years, with more and more campgrounds wanting to take advantage of the service. “It’s good, but they should have gotten with us in the beginning,” Mike Monichetti, owner of Mike’s Seafood & Dock Restaurant on Park Road, said of other campgrounds showing interest. Monichetti and Glancey noted that by starting the shuttle with just one campground, it will allow the service to build up incrementally over the next two or three years. “We can walk and then we can run,” Glancey said. Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce President Christopher Glancey believes the shuttle service will grow in coming years. Once they are dropped off in town, campers from Ocean View Resort will be able to connect to other jitney routes throughout Sea Isle or to neighboring Strathmere. “To have that partnership with the Jitney Association is key,” Monichetti said. Ocean View Resort is the largest campground in New Jersey, according to Scott Turner, who owns the business with his father, Doug. On a busy summer weekend, it has around 3,500 campers and 700 full-time families staying there. Altogether, Cape May County has more than 40 campgrounds, Turner said, quoting county statistics. Glancey said Dennis Township alone has about 17,000 to 18,000 camp sites within the campgrounds, with many of them dotting the Route 9 and Route 83 corridors just several miles outside Sea Isle. “It’s an amazing amount of camp sites,” Glancey said. The Chamber of Commerce is eager to tap those campgrounds in mainland Cape May County as a new source of business for the bars, restaurants and retail shops in the resort town.

Shuttle service would not just boost Sea Isle. Scott Turner described it as a “symbiotic relationship” between Sea Isle and Ocean View Resort.

Ocean View Resort will benefit by being able to offer its campers more amenities, including easy access to the beaches, restaurants and bars in Sea Isle without the concerns of having to find parking on crowded streets, he pointed out. “People want to go over to Sea Isle without having to deal with the traffic and to have a drink or two and not have to worry about driving back,” Turner said in an interview last week. Sea Isle's downtown business district will be a stop for the campground shuttles.