Four Lanes of Ninth Street Open in Time for Holiday Weekend

Construction crews completed their work Thursday night and opened a fourth lane of Ninth Street to traffic.

The road has been under construction and limited to one lane in each direction for the winter and most of the spring. But two lanes of traffic in each direction now flow from West Avenue in Ocean City to Somers Point.

The work is complete in time to accommodate summer crowds that will start to arrive today to celebrate what looks to be a sunny Memorial Day weekend.

In Somers Point, Shore Road is now open—with traffic heading toward Ocean City traveling over a redesigned roadway that eliminated an old trolley bridge. Vehicles traveling from Ocean City to Shore Road are now directed onto a dogleg that intersects Shore Road at stop sign.

Also in Somers Point, the stretch of MacArthur Boulevard between Route 9 and the new Route 52 causeway is limited to one lane in each direction on Friday morning and construction continues.

The roadwork is all part of a massive project to redesign the main causeway into Ocean City. The roadwork portion of the project will not be complete until May 2012, but crews have been racing to open lanes to meet the demands of summer traffic.

Construction crews have advanced work on both sides of the Route 52 Causeway, reopening two critical portions of local roadways that will provide increased travel capacity between Somers Point and Ocean City for the summer season.

The state Department of Transportation said in a Friday news release that reconstruction of one outbound lane on Ninth Street will continue until June 9. 

Real time travel and construction information is available online at 511nj.org