[Shethink13]

Most Wildwood and Cape May traffic uses the Route 55 freeway, which is the replacement highway for Route 47, thus bypassing such dumps as Vineland and Millville. Traffic off Route 55 either takes County Route 550 or Route 83 to finish the trip on the Parkway. (God only knows when they'll finish the last stretch of Route 55 leading to the Parkway.)

Wouldn't closing an alternate route, regardless of how it's being used in normal daily traffic, create more issues during such a high traffic event?

[Publius]

The last thing you want is traffic pounding a spot where there is a significant sinkhole.

There is a tendency for people to forget that much of South Jersey, especially the Cape May peninsula, is literally built on a foundation of sand. Sinkholes are to be taken seriously. Imagine the stink if the sinkhole collapsed while being pounded by an unusual volume of traffic This is a prudent safety precaution on the part of NJDOT.