Wildwood Streets

Plan to change Wildwood street ‘three-lane disaster,' mayor says
By TRUDI GILFILLIANStaff Writer, (609) 463-6716
Published: Friday, February 10, 2006
Updated: Friday, February 10, 2006

— No one denies that New Jersey Avenue could use a face lift. The problem is what the street might look like afterward.

While Mayor Ernie Troiano Jr. welcomes repairs to the busy and bumpy street, he said the plan to turn the four-lane road into a three-lane road simply won't work.

“You'll be sitting on New Jersey Avenue till Labor Day if it goes to three lanes,” Troiano said during this week's City Commission meeting.

Cape May County Engineer Dale Foster said Thursday that the county has $1.25 million in federal funds set side to repair the rocky road from Cresse to Youngs avenues.

To meet national highway engineering standards, however, the road would have to lose a lane, he said.

“The lanes are substandard. They're not wide enough,” Foster said, explaining the third lane would be a turning lane.

Troiano said Wednesday that such a move would be a mistake, and he pointed to slow travel along Atlantic Avenue, a three-lane road, as an example.

It would be “a three-lane disaster,” Troiano said.

Foster said the county has been looking at New Jersey Avenue for several years and identified both the substandard features and safety issues.

He said the lanes along New Jersey Avenue are staggered in part so drivers are not driving side by side because of the narrow lanes, and when they do there is a risk of accidents.

Foster said data show the road has a number of side-swipe accidents, as well as rear-end collisions that occur when cars try to turn left without the aid of turning lanes.

“We would like to do this because it's desperately needed,” Foster said, noting that all of New Jersey Avenue in the city of Wildwood is in need of repair.

If an agreement cannot be reached, Foster said he fears the federal funds, specifically set aside for that section of New Jersey Avenue, would be lost if construction doesn't start soon.

The county has already passed the deadline to use the money, and is operating on borrowed time, he said.

But Foster noted that the county could not force the project on the city.

Meanwhile, Foster said the county was continuing to look at the issue and would soon get back to the mayor once it has determined if the road project can accommodate four lanes.