Local residents hope this is not a sign of things to come.
At $400 million, the new causeway is the most expensive and ambitious project the state Department of Transportation has ever undertaken in southern New Jersey.
Crews have been staging for the past month. The six-year construction will begin in earnest in two weeks when the first piling is driven,
DOT Commissioner Kris Kolluri said his priority is keeping all four lanes of the old causeway open throughout construction. “We're not going to be afraid to recalibrate the project when problems arise. You can't be shy about dealing with them,” Kolluri said.
But residents might be justified in being skeptical.
The causeway has been the scene of intermittent closings during the hot summer thanks to heat-expanded steel joints on the Ocean City drawbridge.
The city's last bridge project caused lengthy traffic tie-ups. The state closed the old Ocean City-Longport Bridge a year earlier than expected after pile-driving for the new bridge unsettled the old one, making it unsafe.
Unlike the Ocean City-Longport Bridge, a prolonged closing of Route 52 would be far more than an inconvenience. It is by far Ocean City's busiest of its four entrances
But project manager Dave Lambert was upbeat Thursday. He supervised construction of the Ocean City-Longport Bridge. Standing in full view of that graceful span, he said he was excited about the prospects for the new causeway.
“I've managed many large bridge projects. This one gives me special pride,” he said.
Ocean City Police Chief Robert Blevin Jr. said his department has been ticketing speeders on the causeway to enforce its 35 mph limit.
The state has been paying the city for an overtime police detail on the causeway, Blevin said.
“That makes it safer for the workers. You don't want an accident out here. It would only compound matters,” Blevin said.
Even so, the city plans to launch a detour campaign to let visitors know alternate routes onto the island, he said.
Elected officials led by Gov. Jon S. Corzine welcomed the start of construction. For Corzine, it was a rare appearance in Cape May County. Initially, there was some confusion about whether the ground-breaking ceremony on Elbow Island technically was in Somers Point.
But this spit of sand is squarely in Cape May County. Ocean City Mayor Sal Perillo welcomed the crowd to his town.
Corzine noted the causeway's importance to O cean City's economy and safety as an evacuation route.
The plan calls to replace the two exterior drawbridges with fixed spans and raise the entire structure to withstand coastal storms. But the project's fishing piers, bicycle path and boat ramp will make it a destination of its own, Perillo said.
The target completion date is Memorial Day 2011.
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