Atlantic City–Brigantine Connector
The Atlantic City–Brigantine Connector, also known as the Atlantic City Expressway Connector, is a freeway connector and tunnel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, United States. It is an extension of the Atlantic City Expressway, connecting it to State Route 87, which leads into Brigantine via the Marina district of Atlantic City, owned and operated by the South Jersey Transportation Authority. The connector is a state highway with the unsigned designation of Route 446X.
Proposals for a connector roadway between Atlantic City and Brigantine date to 1964; planning began in 1995 after businessman Steve Wynn proposed a new casino in the city's Marina district. The goals were to reduce traffic on Atlantic City streets and improve access to the district and Brigantine. It was supported by New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman and Atlantic City Mayor Jim Whelan, but faced major opposition during its planning. Residents whose homes were to be destroyed for the tunnel construction fought the project, and competing casino owner and future president Donald Trump filed lawsuits to prevent its construction.
Construction took almost three years and opened in July 2001 at a total cost of $330 million. Since its opening, the connector has served up to 25,000 vehicles daily, and helped bring business to the casinos in the Marina district.
Route description
The Atlantic City–Brigantine Connector is located entirely within Atlantic City, New Jersey, connecting the eastern terminus of the Atlantic City Expressway in the city's Midtown district and Route 87 in the Marina district near Brigantine. The route begins near the eastern terminus of the Atlantic City Expressway with a southbound-only exit to the Midtown and Downbeach districts. It then turns north along the western shore of Atlantic City with a railroad grade crossing adjacent to the Atlantic City Rail Terminal, followed by an interchange with Bacharach Boulevard. At milepost 0.88, the connector enters a tunnel under the Westside neighborhood. North of the tunnel, the connector has a southbound on-ramp from Route 87, followed by an exit to U.S. Route 30 via State Route 187. After exit E, the connector continues for northbound traffic only for an additional, with an exit that serves as a U-turn to the southbound connector, an exit to Renaissance Pointe, Borgata, and The Water Club. A last exit leads to the Farley Marina and Golden Nugget. The northbound connector terminates as it merges onto Route 87 northbound, which continues into Brigantine via the Brigantine Bridge.The connector is a toll-free extension of the ACE, a toll road linking Atlantic City with the Garden State Parkway and continuing to the Philadelphia metropolitan area. It is owned and operated by the South Jersey Transportation Authority. It is a freeway with an average two lanes per direction and a speed limit of. Its total route length is ; the northernmost section of the connector serves northbound traffic only, whereas southbound traffic travels along the parallel Route 87. The New Jersey Department of Transportation classifies it as a state highway, unsigned Route 446X. NJDOT alternatively measures the route length as from its southern terminus to its exit ramp junction with US 30, disregarding the northbound-only section of the connector.
History
Initial proposals
A connector road between the ACE and the Marina district was first proposed in 1964 by the Atlantic City Planning Board, as the Route 30 Connector, linking the end of the expressway with US 30. The goal was to lessen congestion in Midtown Atlantic City and improve access to the Marina district and the neighboring city of Brigantine. Because of a lack of funds and environmental concerns about construction near the adjacent wetlands, the connector project remained dormant until 1990 when plans for the road were included in a report by the city's Transportation Executive Council. A 1991 study found the project was environmentally feasible, and a route was proposed with a elevated highway over the wetlands. Construction costs were estimated at $80 million, but due to a continuing lack of funds and the complexity of constructing above the wetlands, the project was again postponed.Planning
Plans for the connector reemerged in 1995 following a proposal from real estate businessman and Mirage Resorts president Steve Wynn. The city of Atlantic City issued a request for qualifications to developers interested in developing H-Tract, a former landfill site in the Marina district. Wynn obtained the property from the city following his proposal to construct a $1 billion casino resort. He would only build if better road access was provided directly to the site, which prompted state officials to revive the connector plans.New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman created a transportation task force in September 1995 to consider options. It studied 11 alternative routes, including elevated highways, tunnels, and improvements to existing streets. In March 1996 the task force determined that the best alternative was the Westside Bypass route, which included a highway along the western shore of the city with a tunnel under the Westside neighborhood. Whitman formally adopted the task force's recommendation in July 1996, ensuring that alternative would be built.
The goals of the project were to improve access to the Atlantic City Convention Center, the Marina district, Brigantine, and traffic flow along the city's streets. The tunnel was designed to have as little impact on the surrounding environment as possible; its design included both portals on opposite ends of the community, with landscaping added between the construction site and adjacent homes. Nine existing homes along Horace J. Bryant Jr. Drive would be demolished for the construction of the tunnel. Funding for the project, formally known as the Atlantic City–Brigantine Connector, was approved in January 1997. The total cost of the project was $330 million. Mirage Resorts agreed to pay $110 million, with the remainder coming from state funds from the SJTA, the Transportation Trust Fund, and the Casino Reinvestment Development Authority.
Controversies
The project was controversial, as tunnel construction would displace homes in the Westside neighborhood, and local residents vowed to fight it. Its opponents described the project as an effort to destroy a community, while supporters claimed it was necessary to reduce traffic and create new jobs at the planned casino. Atlantic City Mayor Jim Whelan, a supporter, felt the project would benefit the city. Mirage offered each affected property owner on Horace J. Bryant Jr. Drive $200,000 for their homes, an offer five of the nine accepted. A lawsuit was filed against the company and the city, claiming the tunnel construction would require the demolition of "their stable, black neighborhood" and thus violate their rights.Donald Trump, who was chairman of Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts at the time and would be elected president 16 years later, was also opposed to the connector, and paid the Westside residents' legal bills. Knowing that Wynn's casino would not be built without the connector, Trump also filed lawsuits against the use of state funds for the project. According to Whelan, Trump "didn't want the competition" with his three existing Atlantic City casinos, including Trump Marina, next to the site of Wynn's future casino at H-Tract. Trump criticized the connector as a state-funded "private driveway" to Wynn's casino, and denounced the funding as "corporate welfare" that unfairly favored an out-of-state company over those that had previously made business investments in the city. He claimed that the tunnel would have "immense environmental impacts", and urged the state's Department of Environmental Protection to deny construction permits. Mirage and Wynn retaliated by filing an antitrust lawsuit against Trump Hotels alleging that the company's only goal was to prevent the Mirage resort from being built. The feud between Trump and Wynn over the connector was later the subject of the 2012 book The War at the Shore, by former Mirage director Richard "Skip" Bronson.
According to the Las Vegas Sun, "more than a dozen" lawsuits were filed over the connector project. The lawsuit by the Westside homeowners was eventually dismissed by a federal judge in February 1998. Trump's legal battles against the project lasted four years; he dropped them in February 2001 in exchange for a settlement that would include a new exit ramp from the connector to the Trump Marina. Trump agreed to pay half the ramp's $12 million cost. A group of New Jersey mayors who also opposed the project and filed suit to block an "an inappropriate use of state funds". Their lawsuit was also dismissed; the court found the construction of the connector necessary whether the casino was built or not.
Construction
for the design–build contract of the Atlantic City–Brigantine Connector were submitted to the SJTA in July 1997. The winning bid was the joint venture of Yonkers Contracting Company and Granite Construction who led the design and construction phases of the project. At that time, the connector was the largest design–build project performed by the State of New Jersey and the largest public–private partnership project in the United States.Permits were granted in October 1998, and the groundbreaking ceremony took place on November 4. Completion was originally scheduled for May 2001.
Excavation of the tunnel, using the cut and cover method, began in May 1999. The nine homes were demolished and a trench was dug down to deep. A total of dirt was removed, most of which was reused to construct ramps at other sites on the connector. of reinforced concrete was poured to form the tunnel walls, and a concrete roof was constructed on top of the tunnel where the homes once stood; the site was later turned into a neighborhood park. Since the tunnel runs adjacent to the Penrose Canal, groundwater was present just below the bottom of the trench, requiring a dewatering process to complete the construction. Intelligent transportation system technology was installed to monitor traffic flow and control the tunnel ventilation, automatically triggering jet fans if carbon monoxide levels became too high.
In addition to the tunnel, the connector required building 16 bridges, 15 ramps, and 23 retaining walls, plus landscaping, drainage, and variable-message signs. It was also necessary to move public utility infrastructure, and demolish a sewer pumping station, portions of a power station and a warehouse. A promenade at Trump Marina was leveled to make way for new ramps, and 37 ornamental lampposts were dismantled and later shipped to the nearby Tuckerton Seaport, which opened in 2000. To avoid disruptions in the neighborhood, deliveries of construction materials took place by barge, and construction vehicles did not travel along any local streets. Over 1,800 workers were involved.
During construction, Wynn sold Mirage Resorts to MGM Grand Inc. in a $6.4 billion deal in 2000, forming the MGM Mirage company. Wynn's plans for his Atlantic City casino resort were cancelled, prompting critics to dismiss the project as the "road to nowhere". MGM Mirage took over the H-Tract site, renaming it Renaissance Pointe, and developed plans for Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa, which opened in 2003 after three years of construction.
Opening
A shortage of materials and delivery delays in late 2000 delayed the connector's opening from May to July 2001. The grand opening ceremony took place on July 27, with festivities including a pedestrian tunnel walk. The connector was expected to open to traffic that evening but due to last-minute malfunctions with the tunnel's emergency radio communications system, it did not open to vehicles for four days. Upon opening, the road was formally named the Atlantic City Expressway Connector. Exit ramps to Borgata and Trump Marina were completed and opened in 2003.Once the connector opened, travel times between the Midtown and the Marina districts fell to four minutes from 15. A year after its opening, 18,000 to 20,000 vehicles traveled it daily, higher than the SJTA's expected annual average daily traffic volume of 14,000 to 17,000. Following the opening of Borgata in 2003, the connector served 25,000 vehicles a day.
The connector also affected the city's casino industry, shifting business from boardwalk casinos to those at the marina. Transportation analyst and former SJTA executive Anthony Marino agreed that the connector "s no doubt a factor in the difficulties experienced by Boardwalk casinos." The eight casinos along the boardwalk in 2001 were down to four by 2016. State records that year showed that the three marina casinos had an average annual gross revenue of $134 million, compared to $70 million for the boardwalk casinos. Whelan said "the impact of the project is undeniable", in improving traffic flow in the city and road access to Brigantine. He also credited the project for bringing Borgata, which has since become the city's top-grossing casino.