Hundreds of Residents Rally Against Proposed Route 35 Changes in Lavallette, Ortley Beach

Route 35 (Photo: Daniel Nee)

Hundreds of residents rallied this week against a potential plan to reconfigure Route 35 in Lavallette and Ortley Beach, with officials saying after a pair of meetings that it appears as if the state will back off the most unpopular aspects of its proposal.

The changes under consideration, first reported by Shorebeat in January, would include changing the parking pattern in Lavallette’s business district to require diagonal reverse-in parking along the state highway, and a change in the lane configuration in which there would be two-way traffic on both of what is now the northbound and southbound lanes. Currently, southbound Route 35 carries two lanes of southbound traffic, and northbound Route 35 carries two lanes of southbound traffic. The plan would split both to carry traffic in two directions on each, and remove a number of parking spaces to create barriers in order to accomplish the plan.

The state has also proposed a number of less controversial changes, including the creation of a barrier to protect Lavallette Elementary School from errant vehicles, replacing wheelchair access surfaces at corners that some say have led to pedestrians tripping, and adding new signage and bike lanes.

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“It’s your plan, not our plan,” said Lavallette Councilwoman Joanne Filippone, to a panel of NJDOT consultants who gathered at borough hall this week to discuss the matter. “Leave us alone.”

Two meetings were held, lasting about two hours each – one at Lavallette borough hall and another at the Moose Lodge in Ortley Beach, organized by the Ortley Beach Voters and Taxpayers Association. Both were nearly filled to capacity, with Filippone saying the Lavallette meeting alone attracted close to 200 people. Just a single individual was in favor of the plan, while dozens spoke out against it.

Lavallette’s downtown business district. (Photo: Daniel Nee)

Lavallette Mayor Walter LaCicero, who shed light on the plan following a letter that was initially sent to borough hall last year – followed by multiple meetings with the town’s police chief – said the potential changes could create chaos on roadways and increase accidents as drivers would be forced to pass a parking space, then diagonally back their car into it while traffic would be bunching up behind. The DOT said the plan would allow for safer bike lanes and reduce accidents, though some officials have questioned the data on which the state’s consultants based their accident rates. Some residents at the meeting asked if the state’s data was based on the area’s winter population of accidents per 1,700 people, or the summer population than is conceivably ten times that figure.

LaCicero also recounted a conversation with DOT representatives over the winter in which they expressed surprise that there were so few pedestrians walking along the highway, apparently being unaware that the population swings by a gargantuan measure in between the seasons.

Previously, Steve Schapiro, NJDOT spokesman, said letters were sent to Ocean County, as well Lavallette, Seaside Heights, and Toms River in October 2025, informing them that the agency had started a Concept Development Study for a safety improvement project along two miles of Route 35, from Barnegat Avenue in Seaside Heights (mile post 3.42) through Toms River, to Kerr Avenue in Lavallette (mile post 5.42).

“The objective is to analyze and identify the best alternatives to enhance safety for all users,” Schapiro said. “The letter requests information from the towns regarding any development plans, traffic studies, bicycle/pedestrian plans, or other information that might be relevant.”

It was after that letter was sent that meetings with the Lavallette police chief were held. Separate facets of the proposal would be to create parking opportunities on Route 35 South, establish additional bike lanes and add more sidewalks and ramps in the work area. State officials had initially favored a back-in parking plan when the highway was rebuilt after Superstorm Sandy in 2013 and 2014, but a vigorous effort on the part of Lavallette officials saw it abandoned. Lavallette also fought to regain about 50 parking spaces that the state had proposed eliminating during the rebuild since they claimed there was not enough room under current highway standards. A later study led to the re-establishment of the majority of the spaces.

Local legislators have also joined the chorus of opposition to the new proposal, with state Sen. James Holzapfel and Asseblymen Paul Kanitra and Gregory P. McGuckin citing “serious concerns that highway engineers are unfamiliar with the seasonal nature of this community [and] may not fully appreciate the unique conditions that exist here.”

“We hope the department will take to heart that Lavallette is not a typical highway corridor,” they said in a jointly written letter to the state agency. “Route 35 is a state highway, a neighborhood main street, a lifeline for local businesses, and the sole evacuation route for a barrier peninsula community.”

Kanitra, who attended the Lavallette meeting, said he would fight the proposal “tooth and nail” if it were to be formally proposed.

Route 35, Ortley Beach (Photo: Daniel Nee)

The state’s consultants, for their part, said there was no formal plan – a point that was met with disagreement from some local officials – but simply proposals that had been raised as part of a review conducted while deciding where to expend federal road safety grant funds. It would take more than a year for any proposals to be formalized, they said at the Lavallette meeting.

The second meeting held in Ortley Beach evoked a more conciliatory tone, however, said Seaside Heights Councilwoman Victoria Graichen, who attended.

“I doubt very much it will happen,” she said, citing comments from state representatives who said it would be unlikely they would effectuate a plan with so much local opposition.

“They couldn’t give any good reasons except, they think, it might, down the road, reduce some accidents,” said Graichen. “They had posters, but they said it probably, absolutely, will never go through, because if the town doesn’t want it, it won’t.”

Graichen said at the second meeting, which was “so packed people couldn’t even get in,” any potential construction work would be unlikely to be completed before 2033.

Seaside Heights Mayor Anthony Vaz also expressed his displeasure with the proposal, though it does not affect his down directly.

“It’s been floating around a while, but now it’s been getting to the threshold,” he said. “It was time to nip it in the bud because it becomes something.”