After 7 years since the initial groundbreaking, Lakewood Township's Vermont Avenue Extension opened to the public on Friday morning.
The new traffic signal at the Chestnut Street/ Vermont Avenue intersection is powered on but on flash mode until Tuesday morning.
Township officials have long lauded the Vermont Avenue Extension, saying it aims to provide a new north-south travel corridor, hopefully easing somewhat the congestion at the very busy intersection of Chestnut and New Hampshire Avenue.
The extension of the roadway will also open the door for additional homes to be developed in the area.
The project required extensive permitting from the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection as well as the New Jersey Department of Transportation.
Back in 2020, as Township officials realized that permits for the improvements at the Route 70 intersection would take extra time, they worked out a deal with state officials to permit them to construct phase one of the roadway between Chestnut Street and the Wawa stub, while they worked on finalizing permits for the remainder of the project.
On May 21, 2020, Lakewood's Township Committee awarded the contract for the first phase to The Earle Companies of Farmingdale, NJ for $1,596,813.13.
Tree stub removal and soil erosion control installation began in June 2020. Infrastructure work began in August 2020. Stormwater improvements were installed in September 2020. Sidewalks were installed on the west side in December 2020.
Along with the road improvements, Lakewood MUA water service improvements as well as gas main were also installed in the project area.
The work was substantially completed in June 2021. At that point, Township officials were optimistic that permits for the remainder of the project would be received "imminently." They were also optimistic that the State would permit for the new roadway to be opened at least for one-way travel until the work could be completed all the way to the Route 70 intersection.
Alas, that did not come to fruition, as the state said that the new roadway could not be opened until the entire project all the way to Route 70 was complete.
As first reported here on FAA News, the final State authorization was finally received in November 2023.
The Township Committee awarded the road work contract to Black Rock Enterprises, LLC, of South River, New Jersey for $3,218,793.45. (A to Z Site Contractors of Jackson, NJ was the apparent low bidder, however they indicated there is an error in their bid and they therefore request that it be rescinded; the bid from Black Rock Enterprises was the next lowest responsive and responsible bid.)
The phase 2 improvements included widening the northern approach to accommodate the additional travel lanes, as well as installation of sidewalk and pedestrian crossings across Route 70, and modifications to the traffic signal to sequence it to the traffic signal at the Airport Road intersection.
All together, the road contracts total $4,815,606.58.(In late 2020, the Township was awarded a NJDOT grant of $551,000 which will offset this cost). This amount does not include the cost of the engineering, designing, and permitting of, this project, for which, Remington and Vernick Engineers has been working diligently for several years to bring the project to fruition.
With completion of phase 1 of the project, the new sidewalks met the existing sidewalks in front of the Wawa project on Route 70. Additionally, as part of Ocean County's traffic signal project at Locust Street and Vermont Avenue, in June 2020, Ocean County - through a shared services agreement with Lakewood Township - installed a sidewalk along Vermont Avenue on the side of the funeral home. With completion of phase 2 of the project, the sidewalk on this side of the road is now fully connected.
Earlier this year the Ocean County Board of Commissioners approved installation of a new traffic signal at the now 4-way Chestnut Street/ Vermont Avenue intersection.
Upon completion of the Vermont Avenue Extension, drivers are now able to traverse from the Belz developments to the Vine Street Extension - which opened earlier this year along with a new traffic signal at the Vine Street/ Cedar Bridge Avenue intersection as part of Ocean County's $2.2 million traffic safety improvements project along Cedar Bridge Avenue.
Key congestion issues remain with traversing Pine Street at Washington Street.
As previously reported here on FAA News, Township officials have also advanced plans to additionally pave Vermont Avenue from Essex Street to Oak Street. State permits for that project remain pending.
The extension of the roadway will also open the door for additional homes to be developed in the area, as several developments have been approved by the Zoning Board with the condition that they wait for the road to be opened.
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