Construction crews began clearing a staging area and set up an on-site office on Garrets Island near the Ocean City side of the causeway. Several heavy trucks and a mammoth crane bearing an American flag were poised at the water's edge Wednesday.
The 2.5-mile-long causeway project is expected to cost $400 million when both phases are complete.
The new causeway will have four wide lanes, an emergency shoulder and a separate walking and bicycle path. It will have a boat ramp, fishing piers and places to fish from the bridge.
“It's good to see the project begin. The sooner it begins, the sooner it will end,” Ocean City Mayor Sal Perillo said. “It's not just the amount of money but the amenities the state is building into the project.”
“Heavy construction will start in early to mid-October,” said Erin Phalon, spokeswoman for the state Department of Transportation.
The first half of construction calls for rebuilding the 1.2-mile-long interior portion of the new causeway from Garret's Island across Rainbow Island to Elbow Island. The second half of construction will replace the two exterior drawbridges with fixed spans, rebuild the Ocean City Welcome Center and eliminate the Somers Point traffic circle.
The completion date is Memorial Day 2011.
The Route 52 causeway is a major link between Somers Point and Ocean City, and Atlantic and Cape May counties.
“There's no question over the next four years there will be disruptions and inconvenience,” Perillo said. “We'll work through it.”
The old causeway is scheduled to remain open throughout construction. On Wednesday, one of the two northbound lanes was closed. Phalon said that lane closure was temporary.
Meanwhile, Perillo said the city was advised that the causeway will see more lane closures later this year to repair the southern drawbridge that tends to expand in hot weather.
“It's a good feeling to see that crane,” said Assemblyman Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic. “The important issue is to ensure that as construction takes place, we deal with other hazardous traffic conditions in southern New Jersey.”
Van Drew said he would push for new ramps at Exit 20 and the reopening of the Beesleys Point Bridge.
Cape May County Engineer Dale Foster said he is most concerned about keeping the old causeway open through the five-year construction schedule. Any prolonged causeway closure could stress the 34th Street Bridge to Ocean City.
Vibrations from pile-driving on the new Ocean City-Longport Bridge forced the closure of the old Ocean City-Longport Bridge more than a year earlier than planned and created miserable traffic jams on the island.
For this project, the state moved the new causeway farther from the old spans to prevent a similar problem. But Foster said that might not be enough.
“The existing bridges are still in poor shape. They still have to survive a few more years. Something could happen to them that is not construction related. Like old age,” he said.
The city plans to take advantage of the construction to dump dredge spoils.
NJ Transit spokesman Dan Stessel said construction might affect which lanes buses may take on Route 52 but will not interrupt passenger schedules or require detours.
“The level of coordination that has taken place between NJ Transit and the DOT has been very robust,” he said.
A public meeting on the project is scheduled from 4 to 8 p.m. Wednesday at Dawes Avenue School in Somers Point.
The official ground-breaking will take place next month, Phalon said.
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