Road crews are expected to shift traffic patterns on roads at the entrance to Long Beach Island this week as state transportation officials anticipate final paving of the Causeway project to begin. It is the culminating step in more than a decade of road reconstruction in Ship Bottom amid a project fraught by delays, disputes and community frustration.

The N.J. Department of Transportation announced last week that Ninth Street, also known as Route 72 East, would be closed from Shore Avenue (the…