Officials Celebrate Route 52 Project

Ten days after it opened to full traffic and a day before Memorial Day Weekend, officials gathered Thursday to celebrate the progress of the Route 52 causeway project.

Federal, state and local officials marked the completion of the travel lanes of the new causeway in a ceremony at Kennedy Park in Somers Point — with Great Egg Harbor Bay and the new causeway as a backdrop.

The entourage then boarded trolleys and — accompanied by public safety vehicles and a small group of bicyclists — crossed the causeway for a ribbon-cutting at the foot of the new Ninth Street Bridge in Ocean City.

The causeway provides the main route into Ocean City for residents and visitors, and a six-year, $400 million project — the most expensive bridge project New Jersey has ever completed — completely replaced the 2.2-mile causeway. Two towering fixed-span bridges were constructed, and two aging drawbridges were removed. A elevated roadway connects the two new bridges.

Construction crews are continuing work on a new mid-causeway visitors center, fishing piers, boat ramps, a separated pedestrian/bicycle path and other amenities. The project will be fully complete by the end of 2012.

But with two travel lanes in each direction completed ahead of schedule, officials took time Thursday to congratulate each other, thank the public for its patience, and remark on an project they say will be a triumph for the economy, recreation and public safety.

"This is a great way to kick off the summer tourist season, with the new causeway and bridges providing safe and convenient access to this stretch of the Jersey Shore," state Department of Transportation Commissioner James Simpson said.

Simpson emphasized that the project is more than a roadway with its various recreational facilities.

"This project is so much about quality of life, and about really enjoying and appreciating the place," he said.

Simpson said the state, in similar fashion, will now work to open the long-closed and nearby Beesleys Point Bridge to pedestrian and bicycle traffic (along with eliminating the traffic lights on the Garden State Parkway in Cape May County).

Ocean City Mayor Jay Gillian thanked government officials, union laborers, residents and visitors of Ocean City and Somers Point, and taxpayers for their support of the project.

"I see nothing but great things," Gillian said.

The procession to the other side of the causeway for the ribbon-cutting ceremony included a handful of bicyclists using the wide shoulder of the new causeway — the separate pedestrian/bicycle sidewalk is open only to the fishing pier entrance midway across the causeway.

Ocean City Police Chief Chad Callahan said the shoulders of the highway will remain open to bicyclists. No date for the full opening of the separated sidewalk has been announced.

G.A. & F.C. Wagman, Inc., of York, PA, and R.E. Pierson Construction Co., Inc., of Pilesgrove, are completing the $256 million second phase of the project. DOT Project Manager Frank Inverso said that final costs are still being determined but that the project should be "very close" to budget.