Sea Isle City officials are stepping up their efforts to have Exit 17 of the Garden State Parkway expanded into a full interchange to help ease congestion during the crush of summer tourist traffic heading to the beach town.
City Council at a meeting Tuesday approved a resolution urging the Parkway’s operating agency to convert the exit from its limited two-way configuration into a four-way interchange capable of handling heavy traffic.
“The construction of a full interchange will greatly add to the safety of the traveling public on Sea Isle Boulevard and the Garden State Parkway,” the resolution says.
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which operates the Parkway, proposed turning Exit 17 into a full interchange as one of many projects included in the agency’s $24 billion capital plan released in 2020.
A full interchange would fill in the “missing movements” at Exit 17 between the Parkway and Sea Isle Boulevard, the main artery in and out of town, according to a description of the project.
However, Sea Isle officials are growing frustrated that there has been no apparent movement on the project since 2020. Moreover, there has been no official communication from the New Jersey Turnpike Authority with the city about Exit 17, Sea Isle Councilman Jack Gibson said.
“The city has not heard anything. But we’ll stay in front of them and keep this issue alive,” said Gibson, who has spearheaded local efforts to have Exit 17 expanded.
The New Jersey Turnpike Authority did not respond Tuesday to an email message seeking comment about Exit 17 and Sea Isle’s concerns.
Gibson indicated the next step by Sea Isle will be to seek the support of state legislators and the Cape May County Board of Commissioners. Sea Isle Mayor Leonard Desiderio serves as director of the board of commissioners, the elected body that oversees Cape May County’s government.
“With the help of our legislators and the county commissioners, the need for improvements can be accelerated,” Gibson said in an interview after the City Council meeting.
He noted that Sea Isle originally began lobbying the New Jersey Turnpike Authority for a full interchange in 2017 and has still not officially heard from the agency.
“That’s seven years already,” he said in astonishment.
Sea Isle Councilman Jack Gibson believes that a full interchange at Exit 17 is the safest and most efficient way to handle traffic.Since then, there has been a significant increase in traffic at Exit 17, making the interchange project even more important, he said.
“When mainline traffic on the Garden State Parkway backs up when the southbound ramp is full, that’s not a safe condition,” Gibson said of the congestion at Exit 17.
According to the description of the project, Exit 17’s expansion would cost $20 million and would take 27 months to plan and design and another 18 months to build. It would require a series of county, state and federal environmental permits.
In its current configuration, the interchange is split into two parts. Exit 17’s off-ramp on the southbound side of the Parkway merges with Sea Isle Boulevard. For motorists wanting to access the Parkway’s northbound lanes, they must follow Sea Isle Boulevard out of town and then hop on a separate on-ramp.
However, there is no southbound access to the Parkway at Exit 17 off Sea Isle Boulevard. In addition, there is no exit to Sea Isle off the Parkway’s northbound side. Sea Isle lacks an off-ramp northbound at Exit 17.
To access Sea Isle off the Parkway’s northbound side, motorists must take Exit 13 into neighboring Avalon and then crawl along local roads. The trip through Avalon eventually leads to the Townsends Inlet Bridge, crossing over into Sea Isle’s southern tip.
One shortcut that is known by local motorists is to drive a little farther north on the Parkway and then make a U-turn at the nearby Ocean View service plaza. That gives them access to the Parkway’s southbound lanes and the Exit 17 off-ramp to Sea Isle.
Gibson believes a full interchange simply is the best and safest way to handle traffic. Warning that traffic congestion will likely get worse, he wants to see preliminary work on the Exit 17 project begin as fast as possible to avoid wasting precious time.
“There has been no activity with engineering,” he said.
Gibson, a civil engineer, has a unique history involving Exit 17. Now 90 years old, he helped to build Exit 17 in the 1950s when he took a job as a laborer with a company that was a construction contractor on the Parkway.
Gibson was an engineering student at Villanova University when he was working on Exit 17. He went on to complete his engineering degree. Now, more than 60 years later, he is pushing to have the old interchange rebuilt to make it capable of handling modern transportation needs.
Northbound access to the Garden State Parkway off Sea Isle Boulevard is gained by using a separate on-ramp.
