It took this southbound driver more than six minutes to clear State Road A1A tunnel construction about 5 p.m. March 26, even with signal timing adjustments made for the heavier southbound traffic flow. Jerry Lower/The Coastal Star
By Larry Barszewski
Manalapan town commis-sioners say there should be a time for homeowners of lots stretching from the Intracoastal Waterway to the ocean to build tunnel passageways under State Road A1A — just not during tourist season when traffic on the road is at its peak.
A traffic nightmare surfaced in late February and March with the simultaneous construction of two tunnels next door to each other, causing heavy traffic backups on A1A on weekends and during weekday rush hours. The work isn’t expected to be completed until the middle of May, Town Manager Eric Marmer said on March 27.
It’s not as if officials couldn’t see the problem coming. Town residents Mary and Ralph Gesualdo asked commissioners in January to force a delay in their neighbors’ efforts to build the tunnels for properties at 1890 and 1900 S. Ocean Blvd. because of the crush of traffic on the road this time of year.
However, at that meeting, Town Attorney Keith Davis said the property owners, Jagbir and Sarla Singh, had permits approved in July for the work and that the town had no authority to stop a valid permit.
The tunnels originally were to be completed in November, but the owners ran into delays with Florida Department of Transportation permitting for the project and then the town requested work be postponed so it wouldn’t cause traffic problems around the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.
Marmer told commissioners at their March 11 meeting that at least three or four more tunnels are being planned for under A1A, which allows property owners to connect the houses where they live on the west side of A1A with the beach and their beach houses to the east — without the owners’ having to cross the roadway.
Marmer asked commissioners what they want to see done.
“We do have somebody over there part time that monitors the traffic and has dealt with some road rage incidents over there,” Marmer said.
Commissioners are interested in creating an ordinance that only allows the tunnel work from April 15 through October, possibly limiting construction to one tunnel at a time.
Typically, in the past, the affected two-lane section of road was closed for a week while crews worked near nonstop to put in a tunnel. It was also possible to close down one lane of traffic at a time to build a tunnel, adding another week to the timeline.
In the recent situation, the state required the homeowners to build a “bypass road” on their property to allow a lane of traffic to continue during construction. The new requirements can create a bigger nightmare, affecting traffic for six weeks or more, town officials said.
“If they close the road down it takes five days. If they do half the road (at a time) it takes two weeks. So now it’s taking six weeks (or longer). I don’t understand,” Commissioner Cindy McMackin said.
Marmer said the town is checking with FDOT to see if it would allow homeowners to go back to the previous ways of building the tunnels.
The recent traffic problems have been exacerbated by portable street signals that have been giving equal time for northbound and southbound traffic to access the single-lane bypass — no matter the difference in the length of the car lines.
“My experience is almost always a one-way problem. Like, we’re coming up and there are 10 cars going north and 125 going south, things like that,” Commissioner Dwight Kulwin said. “They’re during predictable times and I think if you had somebody there to readjust things and move things along, I think that would go a great way.”
Marmer said it should not be police handling the timing of the signals, but construction crews. “We’re not looking for the police to be flagmen, though. We’re looking for them to be present at the site,” Marmer said. The cost of providing police should be picked up by the applicant, officials said.
Police Chief Jeff Rasor, who had implied a traffic-oriented role for the police earlier in the meeting, backed what Marmer said.
“Obviously, anytime you have a traffic congestion problem, people’s patience becomes very thin, for lack of better words,” Rasor said. “A police presence there obviously has a calming effect on everybody.”
And Vice Mayor Simone Bonutti said there were safety concerns as well. “I even had a runner coming at me this morning, going through that bypass. It’s like a death wish,” she said. “I just want to prevent an accident from happening.”
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