By LEE PROCIDA Press of A.C. Staff Writer | Saturday, February 20, 2010

Work on the first phase of the Garden State Parkway expansion project south of Toms River has caused delays but is expected to be complete in December. Photo by, Bill Gross

 The ongoing work to expand the parkway from South Toms River to Somers Point has already dramatically changed the landscape along the the nation’s busiest toll road, and there is much more work to come.

State transportation officials say more than a million motorists travel the parkway each day. More than $40 billion in tourism dollars depend on the road’s ability to safely and quickly deliver visitors to shore points, including Atlantic City.  Ensuring the parkway can handle the growing traffic demand is not just an investment in transportation but in the state’s economy.

In the first few months of construction, drivers passing through the Ocean County section of the parkway, accustomed to traveling through a narrow, wooded corridor, were suddenly surrounded by hundreds of orange cones, miles of concrete barriers and wide swaths of dirt on each shoulder.

“It’s kind of a pain,” said Samantha Butler, 45, of Bass River Township, who stopped at the Tuckerton Wawa before heading up Route 539 to the parkway. “I don’t know. It’s road work. It’s a fact of life.”

Harold David, 62, of Stafford Township, said he can live with the roadwork, knowing that it will eliminate the traffic jams he’s encountered in the Toms River area.

“So, at least what it’s doing will bring some relief,” he said.

The current project, slated to be completed by by the end of the summer, involves adding lanes only from South Toms River’s Interchange 80 to Stafford Township’s Interchange 63 — so the planned 50-mile overhaul has another 33 miles to go.

Planners and township and tourism officials say the improvements can’t come soon enough.

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The parkway stretches 173 miles from the state’s border with New York to the north to the southern tip of the state in Cape May. Since it was built in the 1950s,  the road has served as a critical transportation route to the shore and a vital part of the region’s tourism industry.

When the parkway was built, Ocean County’s population was 50,000. Now the county’s population is more than 600,000 and the road, which connects visitors to the shore, often fails to do so without traffic backups. Widening is designed to address the road’s failures, particularly in the portion that runs through Ocean and Atlantic counties.

“Part of going on vacation is the driving experience,” said Renee Kennedy, president of the Southern Ocean Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors. “So, if they’re getting to their destination easier, then the parkway expansion would certainly be better.”

“And sometimes on Sundays you’re like, ‘Let’s leave to beat the traffic and get home early, but maybe people will stay a little longer on a Sunday afternoon.”

Before they are finished, contractors will have added two lanes of highway along a critical stretch of the parkway, from milepost 80 in South Toms River to Interchange 30 in Somers Point, Atlantic County.

To do that, they will have to clear land and add more than 100 miles of additional lanes — 50 miles in each direction — and widen 78 drainage culverts, overpasses and bridges, including the Mullica River bridge. Replacing the Mullica River span, built in 1954, is so critical that workers have already begun that task in preparation for the next phase. That road work is expected to be finished by December.

 New Jersey Turnpike Authority chief engineer Richard Raczynski said the project is putting more than 1,500 people to work. Three general contractors are involved in the first phase, said Raczynski. The Turnpike Authority maintains the parkway.

State officials and engineers view it all as an absolutely necessary plan to fix a road that was never intended to handle the high levels of traffic now seen daily along various points.  According to the state Department of Transportation, more than a million motorists use the Garden State Parkway each day, making it the busiest toll road in the nation, but one that fails repeatedly to handle peak traffic volume.

 In a 2006 report commissioned by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, an engineering firm said not widening the parkway would not only lead to more traffic jams on it, but problems elsewhere. The study predicted more motorists would start finding alternative routes, creating more traffic on already congested roads such as Route 9.

Former Gov. Jon S. Corzine said fixing the parkway was not only an investment in transportation, but an investment  in the state’s $40-billion-a-year tourism industry. Making that case recently was Ruth Smith and Susan Feeber, two friends taking the parkway back to New York City after spending an extended weekend in Atlantic City.

“Yeah, it needs to be three lanes,” said Smith, 65. “There’s no question.”

Smith and Feeber had stopped at the Lacey Township interchange, parking near several massive yellow construction vehicles.

They said they make the trip a few times a year to the casinos, but are wary of coming down in the summer when cars back up, bumper-to-bumper, from Toms River through Stafford Township and then again at various points farther south.

“They definitely need to expand the road,” Feeber said. “When there’s just two lanes, an accident can block the whole road, or two slowpokes can jam up everyone else.”

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Some environmentalists and at least one transportation advocacy group, though, say the project is a  waste of public funds and will not alleviate the traffic problems, but will welcome more sprawling development into the region.

The Trenton-based nonprofit Tri-State Transportation Campaign  is suing the Department of Environmental Protection for issuing the Turnpike Authority a permit for the project, alleging that it did not properly evaluate alternatives.

Those alternatives, according to the group’s staff attorney, Kyle Wiswall, should include instituting variable tolls that increase at certain times to discourage travel during peak hours and days, as well as implementing more ways to encourage car-pooling and public transportation.

“I have people calling me all the time saying, ‘Oh my God, how much are they taking down?’ ” said Jeff Tittel, president of the Sierra Club’s New Jersey chapter. “A lot of people that drive by are shocked by how much they’ve done so far.”

Meanwhile, the massive undertaking continues on schedule, with the first, $220 million phase set for completion this year.

This current phase, besides widening the highway from milepost 63 in Stafford Township to Exit 80, includes installing two Express E-ZPass lanes at the Barnegat Township toll plaza and building a new Mullica River bridge.

The authority plans to restore or create 517 acres of forest and wetlands elsewhere  to compensate for the land it is taking for the additional lane of traffic.  A plan to build tunnels for wildlife to pass under the roadway was scrapped.

“There are so many culverts that cross the parkway now that building additional tunnels would not make sense for what it would cost,” said the authority’s engineer Raczynski. “The DEP finally agreed that our logic was sound.”

The second phase, which expands the road between milepost 48 in Port Republic and Exit 63, starts in July 2011 and should finish by May 2013.

The third and final phase, which will add a third lane down to Somers Point, still awaits funding and has not yet been scheduled.