After Weeks Sitting Idle, Route 166 Roadwork Resumes Thursday

TOMS RIVER, NJ — When work crews close down Route 166 northbound on Thursday night to move barriers and start a new phase of the nearly three-year-old construction project, it will be the first activity weeks, business owers say. And the timing is just terrible, they say.

"They haven't been here in five weeks," said Larry Schuster of Schuster's Toms River Car Wash. "Christmas is coming, and they're going to start working now?"

" It's the busy season, especially for businesses like my neighbor," Schuster said Wednesday afternoon, referring to Corinne Jewelers, the store next door to the car wash. The impact on shopping will be dreadful, he said.

Ocean County Freeholder Joseph Vicari expressed similar concerns in a letter to Gov. Phil Murphy, saying the long-delayed project will have a serious impact on the holiday season.

"As I expressed last month, our businesses along this important commercial corridor suffered through an entire summer season of blocked entrances, detours and other construction headaches," Vicari wrote. "Now these same Mom & Pop establishments are facing the further loss of customers during the vital holiday season. This is completely unacceptable."

"When we met last April, you were gracious enough to have your Chief of Intergovernmental Affairs Mike Delamata visit the construction site with me. You also offered your assistance in helping to see this project through to its long-overdue fruition. I am again asking you to take whatever action is necessary to ensure that our local businesses do not have to suffer through a holiday shopping season tarnished by this never-ending construction project," Vicari wrote.

The state Department of Transportation announced Thursday's impending shutdown earlier this week, saying Route 166 will be closed northbound from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m. Friday while New Prince Concrete moves construction barriers to create a center work zone. James Street, which has been closed since late September, will be reopened, and work to build a concrete center barrier as well as work on drainage issues is expected to get underway after the new traffic pattern is in place.

Schuster said the roadwork resuming now, just as the holiday shopping hits high gear, is just another slap in the face to the business owners, who have watched the project sit idle since October.

"They haven't been here the whole month of November," Schuster said. "I'm here every day. There hasn't even been a worker walking down the road."

It's not clear why no work has been done during that time. Emails sent Wednesday to the NJDOT went unanswered as of 4 p.m. Thursday.

Schuster, who has owned the car wash on Route 166 for more than 30 years, has been very vocal in his frustration over the $11.7 million project's slow pace and impact on local businesses.

In October, Schuster painted a sign on a bedsheet calling the DOT liars and expressing frustration with communication about what was happening with the curb work along his driveway.

Steve Schapiro, director of communications for the NJDOT, in October said the project manager had been communicating with the businesses on a regular basis. Schuster has been far from alone in his complaints, however. The owner of Shut Up & Eat, a small restaurant on Route 166 south of Route 37, had her driveway blocked without warning, and the entrance to the Office Lounge was blocked as well, again without warning. The complaints grew so intense in April that the DOT moved up its timeline to make sure work on the Route 166 jughandles was completed before the Memorial Day tourist season arrived.

The project has moved at a crawl ever since.

The impact has been significant. Toms River Councilman Daniel Rodrick, in an email to Patch, said ShopRite says its sales are down 20 percent as a result of the ongoing contruction. The impact for other businesses has been at least that significant if not more.

"I’m confident that the impact is worse for non-essential shopping," Rodrick said.

Motorists have actively avoided driving through the stretch that runs from the Old Freehold Road-Presidential Road intersection across Route 37 to Highland Parkway south of Route 37.

Work on the project first began in late March 2016, but has been beset by delays almost from the start. The largest delay was caused when then-Gov. Chris Christie shut down road projects across the state in July 2016 as he battled with the state Legislature over increasing the gasoline tax to fund the Transportation Trust Fund. When the suspension was lifted in October 2016, the Route 166 project remained delayed because New Jersey Natural Gas had reassigned its crews to work on other projects in the interim.

Work finally resumed in late January 2017, but has continued to drag along for most of the last two years. The project includes dedicated through lanes both north and south, a center concrete barrier, drainage improvements, and a retaining wall along the Crossroads Mall side of Route 166.

The most recent estimates say the project will be completed this winter.

Rodrick said Murphy needs to press the issue with the DOT.

"He needs to get his Department of Transportation in line," Rodrick said. "The DOT needs to get a crew back out there to finish this job already. Three years is long enough."

Click here to get Patch email notifications on this or other local news articles or get Patch breaking news alerts sent right to your phone with our app. Download here.

Follow us on Facebook. Click here to like our page.

Have a news tip? Email karen.wall@patch.com

Photo by Karen Wall, Patch staff