By Donald Wittkowski
Motorists will have to wait a little longer before traffic shifts over to a new, elevated section of Sea Isle Boulevard that is part of a $12.7 million reconstruction of the main artery in and out of town.
Cape May County is raising the road by 4.5 feet to create a higher and drier evacuation route for flood-prone Sea Isle City.
Motorists were originally supposed to switch over from the existing, low-lying stretch of road to the elevated section by mid-October, but that date has been pushed back to the first half of November amid construction complications.
George Savastano, Sea Isle’s business administrator, said work crews must first complete the installation of steel plates that will protect a natural gas line running underneath the new roadway.
The boulevard project has also been delayed by ongoing construction work on the adjacent Garden State Parkway overpasses at Exit 17. Savastano noted that the parkway work created some “conflicts” with the boulevard’s reconstruction.
Sea Isle Boulevard is being rebuilt along a stretch of 1.7 miles – between the parkway’s northbound entrance ramp at Exit 17 and the John F. Kennedy Boulevard bridge entering town. The newly built elevated section will tie in with the parkway entrance ramp.
The new road will not only be higher, but will be wider than the cramped lanes that currently handle traffic in and out of Sea Isle. During peak travel times in the busy summer tourist season, it is not uncommon for traffic to get backed up heading into town.
Although the project will ultimately create a better roadway and evacuation route, the lengthy construction work – now in its third year – has been a source of frustration for Sea Isle’s elected officials, business leaders and local residents.
At Tuesday’s City Council meeting, more complaints were made about the project, including the unsightly, overgrown weeds that have sprouted along the narrow road.
Dave Helfrich, a Sea Isle resident, told Council that the weeds have grown so high that they obscure the guardrail.
“If you can’t see the guardrail, especially at night, you’re going to hit it,” Helfrich said in an interview after the meeting. “I have to be extra careful not to hit it.”
John Henry, another local resident, said it appears construction crews “haven’t done anything” along the boulevard in recent weeks other than the work on the parkway overpasses.
Sounding impatient with the pace of the work, Councilman Jack Gibson noted that Council is getting an update on the project from Savastano and will share it with the public.
Mayor Leonard Desiderio, joining the critics, has repeatedly ridiculed the project as the “boulevard of broken dreams.”
For months, the newly elevated section of roadway has been tucked behind concrete construction barriers, awaiting the contractor to finish the final parts of the project before motorists begin using it.
Construction work resumed this fall. No road construction was allowed over the summer as part of environmental restrictions that protect migratory osprey birds during their nesting season in the marshlands surrounding Sea Isle Boulevard.
Those environmental restrictions were in effect from March 15 to Aug. 15. Ospreys are classified by the state as a threatened species of bird.
The Sea Isle City Chamber of Commerce and Revitalization and the Sea Isle City Taxpayers Association want the environmental restrictions loosened to avoid construction delays over the summer.
The two groups have agreed to ask Cape May County, which is overseeing the road project, to amend its permit application with the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection to see if three existing osprey nests could be removed from Sea Isle Boulevard.
In exchange, nine new osprey nests would be built outside of the construction area to give the birds a different location to lay their eggs and raise their chicks. The nests consist of manmade, elevated platforms overlooking the marshlands.
Savastano, however, said the county was unsuccessful in an earlier attempt to have the osprey-related construction restrictions lifted. The NJDEP turned down the county’s request, he said.
The multifaceted boulevard project began in 2014 and is being done in phases. During the next major phase, the low-lying south side of the existing roadway will also be elevated by 4.5 feet.
Huge mounds of dirt will be added to the south side and then will sit there for about two years. The process, known as “surcharging,” allows the dirt to become compact enough for the next part of the elevated boulevard to be built on top of it. That phase of the project is scheduled for completion by the summer of 2019, according to county engineer Dale Foster.
After all of the road work is completed, the county will build new bulkheads and also create new wetlands to replace those that were lost during the boulevard’s reconstruction. All told, the entire project will wrap up June 2020, Foster said.
