Dear Santa, Five Bridges, Please!

Living on this southern peninsula, a county comprised of islands, bridges are vital. With few exceptions, motorists driving across municipal lines will likely cross a bridge of some sort, maybe one they don’t realize. Some are small while others are large and may even require a toll payment.
Oh, Santa, if you could only grant Cape May County one wish this year, could it be maybe $500 million to build five new bridges along Ocean Drive? Sound like a zany idea? Not so fast, when is the last time you priced a new bridge, even one spanning “Where nature smiles for 30 miles?”
The good folks from the Sea Isle City Taxpayers Association, represented by Jim McDevitt, have an idea that sounds like a typical Christmas wish, but there is a lot of reasoning behind it. Seldom does anyone appear before the Board of Chosen Freeholders asking for a tax hike. Folks have been known to gripe about a penny or two on the levy, but the price tag of the SICTA wish was $500 million. You read correctly. As calculated by McDevitt, the cost would be borne 80 percent by barrier island communities that benefit most from Ocean Drive bridges. (Don’t check your blood pressure right now.)
Those aging spans, all bascule-type bridges, meaning they open to allow vessels to glide through, were built when the nation was trying to shake the Depression. Uncle Sam was spending money on public works projects to prime the economic pump. What we have as a result are some very necessary links within the county that would be very costly to replace.
The Townsend’s Inlet Bridge, linking Sea Isle City and Avalon, has had more annual repairs than my old Renault Dauphine, and it’s about as reliable.
Freeholder Director Gerald Thornton, whose acumen for staying away from bad bridges is legendary (think Beesley’s Point $1 bargain bridge), acknowledged McDevitt was right in his thinking, but doubted the county could pass the hat to enough taxpayers to scrounge half a billion bucks without raising a shout loud enough to be heard in Delaware. Uncle Sam’s largess is drying up after he quit printing dollar bills, and the Garden State’s coffers for its Transportation Trust Fund are running on empty, and sooner than later will run, if at all, on fumes.
Admit it, McDevitt and the Sea Isle City crowd have a point. As any bartender must declare nightly “Last call!” It really is time for some new bridges. That’s a lot easier said than done. Getting the funds to pay for them is not the least of the problems. Try getting myriad government agencies to put their stamps of approval on any bridge, and it will become evident it’s almost better to suffer with the old than try to get something new.
Because the Townsend’s Inlet Bridge has weight limits, the crowd pointed to the massive beachfront fire earlier this year that leveled three multi-million homes in the city, as the reason fire companies could not cross and has to go inland to get to the island. That makes a lot of sense from their point of view.
Ask County Engineer Dale Foster about the “joys” of getting permits for the $12.7-million Sea Isle City Boulevard raising (4.5 feet) project. Between regulations for traffic movement and environmental restraints, as in work can’t take place at certain times of the year because of the fauna, and securing money to pay the bills, it would fill half a library with paperwork. That doesn’t even count the time spent convincing those alphabet agencies of the worth of the project. Add ocean and wetlands into the equation, and it’s easy to see why pontoon bridges were used by Union troops in the Civil War.
Imagine the government’s bureaucratic mindset. Take document- stuffed brief cases and march into offices in Trenton and maybe Washington, and declare “I have the loot, all I need are permits to build five new bridges.” The receptionist would probably think you were slightly deranged.
It would have been easier to expect King George to simply grant nationhood to 13 Colonies than to quickly build five bridges in Cape May County.
Undaunted, the Sea Isle City contingent, like the crowd in the bleachers as they watch Casey step up to bat, knows the outlook isn’t brilliant for the “Mudville nine.” Regardless, they asked, they tried. They “Clung to that hope which springs eternal in the human breast.” To them five new Ocean Drive bridges are like, well, like this year, the Flyers winning the Stanley Cup and bringing it to Sea Isle City’s beach. A hope, a dream, could it happen? Well…