Boulevard Nearly Cost a Life

CREST HAVEN – A friend of Sea Isle City resident Lynn Shirk recently had a near-death experience on the narrow, two-lane Sea Isle Boulevard. 
So great was the impact of that just missed, head-on collision to the friend and to Shirk that she spoke to freeholders July 26 seeking help and correction.
Shirk said a truck veered into her friend’s lane and swerved at the “last second.” Her friend, “Got against the guard rail,” and survived. Mentally shaken by the experience she said he couldn’t clear his mind of it.
“It’s been on my mind,” she said.
Rumble strips have been placed on roadways such as Route 9 and Route 47, she said.
Would it be possible to have those strips installed on the boulevard’s new westbound lane, she wondered.
“You cannot pull over,” said Freeholder Will Morey of the existing condition. “Westbound, there’s nowhere to go.” There are no shoulders on the road. The boulevard is undergoing a $12-million, multi-year county construction project that is to resume in September, according to County Engineer Dale Foster.
To install rumble strips at the present would mean road closures, because the equipment that makes the strips extends into both lanes, he added.
The strips could be considered for the next phase of the roadway, he said.
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton agreed the strips should be considered.
“There is nowhere to go,” restated Morey. He wondered if the strips could be installed by closing the road at, perhaps, 2 to 3 a.m.
“We could do it, but it’s close to the end of summer,” said Foster.
“How long will the condition exist?” Morey asked.
Until year’s end, Foster responded.
“There’s no getting off, no escape,” Morey added.
“It’s a mile of Hail Marys,” said Vice Director and Sea Isle City Mayor Leonard Desiderio, who daily drives that highway.
Desiderio was reluctant to close the road, even in the early morning, fearing no way for emergency vehicles to leave or enter the city from Dennis Township.
The resort’s only other links, if the boulevard were to close, are on Ocean Drive to the north through Strathmere into Ocean City or over Townsend’s Inlet Bridge to Avalon.
Desiderio promised to discuss the situation with Sea Isle City and New Jersey State Police and “See what I can do.”
Shirk also asked whether the county could consider using the elevated earthen berm that will eventually settle and become part of the new roadway as a bike path or pedestrian way?
Thornton replied the new roadway was too high, and feared someone might fall onto the two-lane highway.
Foster said that the earth was “too soft” at the present to bear any load.