Neighbors Endure One Final Summer With Noisy Route 52 Project

The ribbons have been cut. The backs slapped. And the bows taken.

The new $400 million road to Ocean City — the rebuilt Route 52 causeway — is carrying four lanes of traffic to and from Ninth Street in spectacular fashion. It opened before Memorial Day amid . 

But below two new towering bridges and elevated 2.2-mile causeway, work continues as it has for the past six years. Construction crews are putting the final touches on the project, and bayfront neighbors are listening familiar sounds: the clanks of early-morning construction work and the rumble of heavy equipment.

"This was the summer we thought, oh boy, we're going to get our life back," said David Mink, a resident of the Nor'easter condos between Seventh and Eighth streets on the bay.

In public meetings and private comments, neighbors of Route 52 have said that the projects contractors — G.A. & F.C. Wagman, Inc., of York, PA, and R.E. Pierson Construction Co., Inc., of Pilesgrove — have been communicative and accommodating, and they've said they understand that a project of that size and scope cannot be built without noise and disruptions.

But with the project nearing an end, they're ready for the return of "peace and quiet" to the bayfront.

They may have to wait a little longer.

Crews have been starting work at 6 a.m. to avoid the afternoon heat, according to Timothy Greeley, spokesperson for the state Department of Transportation.

Materials from the bridge demolition at the Somers Point end of the causeway are being hauled by barge to the main dock at Garrets Island across the channel from Ocean City, Greeley said. The material is then moved from barges to trucks for removal from the site.

Greeley said a crew installing piping on piers is also starting work at 6 a.m.

"The demo work may have to go on all summer long and into the fall," Greeley said.