Road projects could ease shore congestion - eventuallyAs Shore traffic woes grow, the cure adds to the pain
By Jacqueline L. Urgo
Inquirer Staff Writer
July 22, 2007

GERALD S. WILLIAMS / Inquirer Staff Photographer
Traffic on the Route 52 causeway heading to Ocean City, N.J., stacks up at 2:30 p.m. on a Friday. In the background are cranes building spans to replace the antique drawbridges.
» More images On any hot, steamy Friday afternoon, hordes of drivers flee the city and suburbs, stringing a Shore traffic jam that can stretch as far inland as the Walt Whitman Bridge.
Even on most summer Saturday mornings, big pockets of traffic collect along the Atlantic City Expressway as drivers funnel through tollbooths and past fender benders and stalled vehicles.

By Sunday night, the parade repeats - in reverse.

More traffic is headed to and from the Jersey Shore than just 10 years ago. More even than last summer.

The number of vehicles using the Atlantic City Expressway, a toll road that many consider the primary route between Philadelphia and the Shore, is projected to be about 13 percent higher this year than it was five years ago.

"It takes me an average of 30 minutes longer now to get from my house in Plymouth Meeting to my house in Ocean City than it did when we bought the place 15 years ago," said Phyllis Cordon, 61, a self-described Atlantic City Expressway veteran. "The route hasn't gotten any longer, so it's got to be the traffic."

Hers was among the 66.8 million vehicles that plied the 44-mile expressway last year, up 3.5 percent from 2005. In 2002, 59 million vehicles used the road.

"This summer's numbers are robust, so we expect that the total for this year will be an increase over last year even though the numbers for 2007 started out a little sluggish," said Laurie Brewer, a spokeswoman for the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates the expressway.

So the question many stalled drivers will ponder is: "Just what is being done about this mess?"

"With the projects the DOT has on the table right now, I think we are certainly trying to address some of these problem areas at the Shore," said Tim Greeley, a spokesman for the New Jersey Department of Transportation.

During the summer, the department tries to schedule construction to minimize the impact on Shore traffic, Greeley said.

Still, some projects continue, such as the $37.3 million replacement of three county-owned bridges along Delilah Road, an artery from Absecon and Pleasantville to Atlantic City. That project, which began recently, is to be finished in late 2009.

Then there is the Route 47/83-Dennis Creek bridge replacement in Cape May County. Route 47 is a main route from Cumberland County to beaches in Cape May County. The $7.6 million project is expected to be completed next month.

The Route 70/Manasquan River bridge replacement in Ocean County has created headaches on that main road to the Point Pleasant and Manasquan Beach areas since early last year. The $52 million project is ahead of schedule and is to be finished by late 2010.

Another bridge is being replaced over the Manasquan River on Route 35, at a cost of $33 million. It is to be finished by early 2009.

Farther south on Route 70 in Ocean County, intersection improvements on Massachusetts Avenue in Bricktown, costing $5 million, are expected to be completed in November 2008.

"In general, we do not have lane closures during the day. They would be kept to overnights and off-peak tourist travel times," Greeley said.

One project that might make entering and leaving Ocean City along the Route 52/Ninth Street causeway more difficult is expected to pay off big time when complete, Greeley said.

The $154 million project is replacing two antique drawbridges that often get stuck upright at the height of summer because the gears jam in high humidity. Two taller, span bridges will be built along the 2.2-mile causeway connecting Somers Point to Ocean City.

"Because of concern about summer traffic, we've kept all four lanes open on those bridges and causeway while construction takes place alongside the existing route," Greeley said.

Off the beaten Shore paths, the concern was the same with a project being completed along Pitney Road in Galloway Township, a mainland community with a steady stream of traffic to and from Atlantic City, Brigantine, and the downbeach towns of Ventnor, Margate and Longport.

"You don't routinely think of Galloway as being affected by summer traffic, but it is because the Shore becomes so saturated with people this time of the year," Atlantic County Engineer Joe D'Abundo said.

Galloway has several golf courses frequented by barrier-island residents and is a bedroom community for Atlantic City casino workers.

"There's really no good time to do a road project at the Shore," D'Abundo said. "In the summer, people complain that they make the Shore traffic worse, in the fall it's the school buses, and then at the holidays people say it makes it tough to get around then."

Like his colleagues in Ocean and Cape May Counties, D'Abundo said he tried to minimize the number of road projects during the summer.

But that doesn't mean much to people such as Cecelia Rogers, 57, of Ventnor.

She said construction detours along Pitney Road had added 30 minutes each way to her commute to work at a Galloway Township supermarket.

"It's bad enough with the tourist traffic everywhere you go now," Rogers said, "but then they close roads and make detours that make you go eight miles out of your way just to get to work. It's ridiculous. They need to plan the timing on these things a little better."

And as experts continue to seek ways to ease congestion, some say the traffic problems likely will only get worse.

"There's more and more people all the time visiting the Shore and deciding to live here full time," Cape May County Engineer Dale Foster said. "And there will always be only so much land to work with in terms of creating and widening roads."



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Contact staff writer Jacqueline L. Urgo at 609-823-9629 or jurgo@phillynews.com.

Jul 22, 2007 4:44 pm US/Eastern

Amusement Park Ride Injures 5 In Ocean City, N.J.
(CBS/AP)

OCEAN CITY, N.J. Five people were injured Sunday when an amusement park ride malfunctioned along the Jersey shore, according to police.

According to the Ocean City police department, the five people received minor injuries when riding the "Log Flume" ride at Gillian's Wonderland Pier on the Boardwalk.

The victims were identified as Kimberly Aceto, 40, of Barrington; Travis Lindenmoer, 27, of Lehighton, Pa.; and Danielle Summreil, 23, of Lehighton, Pa.

A 9-year-old boy and a 12-year-old girl were also injured, but due to their age, their names are not being released.

The victims were taken to Shore Memorial Hospital.

There was no information on what happened to the ride.

The "Log Flume" will remain closed until the New Jersey State Department of Community Affairs, which oversees amusement parks, can figure out what caused the accident, police said.

Telephone calls left at the amusement park office were not immediately returned.

County officials to discuss fate of Beesleys Point Bridge
By MICHAEL MILLER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6712
Press of Atlantic City
Published: Wednesday, July 18, 2007

UPPER TOWNSHIP — A state lawmaker is hosting a meeting Friday of state and Cape May County officials over the future of the Beesleys Point Bridge.
Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, said he will help mediate an agreement between the county and the state Department of Transportation over the long-closed toll bridge.

Under the proposal by Cape May County Administrator Steven O’Connor, the county would add the bridge to its inventory of five toll bridges. The county would pay to operate the bridge.

The state would take care of bonding for the estimated $20 million in repairs the drawbridge needs, O’Connor said. The county has not determined what share, if any, it would contribute toward repairs, he said.

Friday will mark the first time the DOT has opened the bridge’s finances to the county, despite a lawsuit and an Open Public Records Act request the county filed.



“If we operate it, we want all the information we can get about previous income and expenses of the past owners,” O’Connor said. “We have to sit down and discuss what the expectations of the DOT are as far as the county’s financial position toward rehabilitation costs.”
Van Drew said he expects many issues to be resolved this week. The Beesleys Point Bridge Co. closed the private span three years ago after an old concrete pier threatened to fall into a newer one. The company said it did not have money to make repairs.

DOT Commissioner Kris Kolluri on Tuesday said he would participate in the meeting with Freeholder Director Dan Beyel and Cape May County Engineer Dale Foster.

Staff writer Thomas Barlas contributed to this report.


To e-mail Michael Miller at The Press:MMiller@pressofac.com

Guarding the Point where the ocean meets the bay

By RICHARD DEGENER Staff Writer, (609) 463-6711
Press of Atlantic city
Published: Saturday, July 14, 2007

CAPE MAY POINT — Pete Pietras tracked it as it crossed Delaware, knowing that it could mean nothing or it could mean everything to his job of keeping bathers safe.
Pietras, 37, a Cape May Point native and beach patrol captain since 1995, knows well the unpredictability of summer storms crossing the Delaware Bay. He's seen water spouts spin right off the beach and lightning bolts slam into the waters.

Pietras knows that some days a far-away storm will rumble for a long time and never make its move east. Other storms will be in Lewes one minute and suddenly hit here furiously after crossing the open water with no resistance.

This particular storm Wednesday turned out to be nothing much, just a little sprinkle of rain. But Pietras and Chris Garrison, a former captain who now works as a lifeguard, were on top of it early.

“The biggest thing we have here is T-storms. We get hit first. Brainard Avenue, where Chris sits, he's my eyes. We track it and decide if it will skirt us or hit us. If it's going to hit us, we get everybody off, and then we get off,” Pietras said.

That's the way it is here at the most unusual bathing beaches in New Jersey, where for almost a century lifeguards have had to be acutely aware of the weather and the unique geography where the ocean meets the bay.
Some of the guarded beaches are on the ocean and some are on the bay, but during the course of the day, an individual beach can be both a bay and ocean beach. It depends on what the tides are doing in the bay named after Virginia Colony governor Lord De La Warre.

The government has its own line for marking the mouth of the bay. It's a straight line that runs from the Cape May Lighthouse to the Harbor of Refuge at Cape Henlopen, Del. Pietras doesn't use that line, because it doesn't help him in his job of saving bathers. His line is where the waters of ocean and bay meet, a turbulent area known informally as “the rips.” It moves with the tides and can affect his beaches.

That is another unique thing about the beaches here. Tides go in and out on most ocean beaches. Here they go laterally, and with the force of a fast-moving river. That's because the entrance to the bay is narrower than the middle of the bay.

“When it's going good, you can't swim against it,” Pietras noted.

Rock groins often turn the bathing areas into a lake, but it often presents a false sense of security as the currents hit the end of the rocks and swirl towards the shore.

“The currents are always there, and the guards know that. They move the bathers and shift them from one side to the other,” Pietras said.

There are times when half the beaches in town are open and half are closed.

Geography also creates another situation. Strong northeast winds, a big worry for ocean beaches, are not much of a problem here. The beaches are actually somewhat protected from a northeaster. There have been times when ocean beaches are closed to swimmers and the beaches here are open. Storms moving in from the south and west are a bigger problem.

Much of what Pietras knows about the currents has been passed down to him. This is a beach patrol with a long, rich tradition. The operation is so old they even believe they have a ghost, a friendly one, watching over them. They are starting to plan the 100th anniversary. Town fathers began talking about hiring a lifeguard in 1909 and took action in 1910, giving the duel job to a man also in charge of lighting the borough's street lamps.

The first guard known by name was Clarence Hixox, who was hired in 1912 and got paid $30 per month. This was changed to $1 per day in 1914 when Leo Alvarez took over. Nobody is quite sure if that's a pay raise, because nobody is really sure how long the season was then, or even what hours of the day the strand was open. These days, the season runs from mid-June to Labor Day.

Old minutes make it clear that duel jobs were often expected. In 1920, George Jones was paid $2.50 per day, but he also had to conduct light and water inspections. The price was increased to $3 per day in 1924, when Percy Romtra took over, but he was also given the added job of being the town's marshal.

The minutes give indications of what beaches were covered and how the patrol grew from one guard to today's crew of 25. The first captain was Stephen McGarvey, who was appointed in 1965. In 1966, he was making $55 per week. In 1972, the beach-tag program began and the pay increased. In 1978, the captain made 50 cents more per hour and a lieutenant 25 cents more per hour than a lifeguard. Pietras was hired in 1987 at the age of 16.

“I was cutting grass, and (Captain) Pete Romano approached me. Cape May was paying $4 an hour, and he offered me $4.25. That 25 cents was nice at 16 years old. I thought I was going to be a millionaire,” Pietras said.

The patrol has everything the ocean resorts have. Early equipment mainly included a big wooden cross on the beach with a rope and life ring attached to it. Beach Patrol headquarters used to be a box on Coral Avenue with all the gear in it. Today, they have row boats, four-wheel-drive beach vehicles, personal watercraft and building space behind Borough Hall for headquarters. The patrol has several certifications and since 1989 has run a junior lifeguard program.

The town only has 234 year-round residents, but the quaintness, and lack of parking meters, seems to be drawing more and more people to the beaches. In 1996, the strand drew 36,000 people, but this rose to 74,000 during 2006.

Part of the draw could be lifeguards like Brian Wilson, who takes the time to walk the nuns at St. Mary's By The Sea Convent into the water.

“The nuns love him. He assists them in and out of the water. We actually do that for anybody,” Pietras said.

The patrol also leaves its borders quite often, going as far as Cape May but also to Lower Township beaches, where there are no lifeguards, such as Sunset Beach and Higbee Beach.

“It's not our responsibility, but we do it as the neighborly thing,” Pietras said.

The patrol recently rescued two men who entered the water in North Cape May and drifted to Alexander Avenue. It's the kind of thing small towns do. Pietras intends to keep it that way.

To e-mail Richard Degener at The Press:RDegener@pressofac.com