While blinking traffic lights have returned to the Island, signaling the start of the off-season, the N.J. Department of Transportation has yet to return to finish the remaining punch-list items from the final phase of the Causeway project.
“When are they coming back?” resident Ralph Viola asked during the Ship Bottom Borough Council’s September meeting, voicing the question many had about why work hadn’t begun shortly after Labor Day as it has many times before. “The summer’s over – about a month.”
He addressed the council during its Sept. 22 meeting, hand-delivering an additional punch list related to the Causeway project. Viola had already submitted a list of his concerns that were addressed by the state, county, and local officials. He replied to that document in July, he said.
Kathleen Flanagan, borough administrator, said the town’s engineer had been in contact with the state as recently as that afternoon (Sept. 22) regarding road markings.
“We’re being told it’s being worked on, but they will not give us an exact set date. They can’t; one (reason) has to do with the weather,” she said. “But we are being told that it is going to start soon.”
As of Oct. 12, work had not yet resumed.
Still, Viola’s concerns extend beyond the project’s timeline, reflecting his broader unease about the unresolved conditions related to the multi-year, federally funded road improvement work.
“These are all safety issues,” he said, clutching the punch list in his hand. “This is a life-or-death situation that you have here. Somebody’s got to get on top of them.”
Viola said he had done all he could do by reaching out to 9th District legislators as well as Ocean County and borough officials.
“And now, we have the same problem where the state dictates which way bicycles go and which way cars go on a one-way street,” he said, referring to the proposed bike path on East Bay Terrace. “This is crazy. We should be directing what the rules are.”
Mayor William Huelsenbeck reminded Viola the Causeway project is under the state’s jurisdiction and on state-owned and -maintained land; the borough has no authority over the matter.
The borough controls its side streets, most of which are residential. The Island’s main artery – Eighth and Ninth streets, or Route 72 – is controlled by the state. Barnegat Avenue, Central Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard are county roads. That division of responsibility has frustrated residents who say it allows agencies to shift responsibility rather than address dangerous intersections.
The reconfiguration of Central Avenue and Long Beach Boulevard was sold as solutions to ease traffic in the area, but critics say it still favors funneling motorists onto the same congested routes as before. They cut over to escape the long lines and re-create the same bottlenecks that existed before the former Causeway circle was altered last year.
Ship Bottom already handles heavy traffic as the gateway to the Island. But since the NJDOT converted Central Avenue into a two-way north-south route in May 2025, congestion has worsened – and so has speeding near one of the Island’s busiest intersections, just south of Ninth Street.
The Central Avenue redesign is part of the $360 million Causeway expansion project, funded by the state and federal governments. The project also converted the Boulevard into a two-way street throughout Ship Bottom.
In the meantime, Viola outlined his concerns about the Causeway project in a detailed three-page, 12-point punch list that covered items such as curb painting, crosswalks, sidewalks, utility poles, catch basins and drainage.
Among his concerns with sidewalks, he said several sidewalk sections and driveway entrances need to be removed and replaced because of pitting and cracks in recently poured concrete. The affected areas include the west sidewalk on Central Avenue between Sixth and Seventh streets; the sidewalk on Barnegat Avenue between those streets; the corner of Sixth and Central; and the private driveway entrance beside the Ocean County Maintenance Facility on Barnegat Avenue.
Other issues include the incomplete catch basin in the grass on the southwest side of the intersection between Central Avenue and Sixth Street, he said. Central Avenue, along with Barnegat Avenue and Seventh, Eighth and Ninth streets, improperly drains to new and existing culverts, according to Viola’s punch list.
On the northeast and southeast corners of Barnegat Avenue and Eighth Street, where the handicap access ramps are located, the road and half of the handicap ramp flood, despite a catch basin being nearby, indicating the road was not properly sloped, Viola said in his punch list.
The NJDOT has already addressed some of the issues raised by residents, while others remain – including whether the redesign met state requirements for transition zones and bicycle travel on the newly redesigned stretch of Central Avenue.
Viola drew public attention to traffic safety concerns last August, when he submitted a petition arguing that the Causeway project had increased traffic risks in their neighborhoods for pedestrians, bicyclists and families.
