A piece of metal in a construction zone on the Garden State Parkway just north of the Toms River Toll Plaza acted like a can opener this morning, slashing tires and stranding more than a dozen motorists.

At least 15 vehicles had tires flattened in the space of a few minutes, as they drove through a construction zone where shoulders are being restored and lanes widened to address safety concerns on the most accident-prone stretch of the major toll road.

“A metal piece from a bridge joint came loose and was sticking up far enough to puncture the tires of some vehicles that drove over top of it this morning,” said Tom Feeney, a spokesman for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority, which runs the Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike. “It was on a temporary bridge over Old Freehold Road. The temporary bridge was built by the contractor to carry traffic while they are replacing the permanent structure.”

The rash of flat tires happened quickly — between 8:15 and 8:30 a.m. — at mile marker 85.6 on the northbound Parkway in Toms River.

While the reason for the flat tires was different, the incident evoked memories of the 18 cars damaged in February on the Parkway South after a large sinkhole opened near the Driscoll Bridge in Sayreville.

The Turnpike Authority handles damage claims for incidents on the Parkway or Turnpike.

The Parkway is being widened between mile markers 100 in Wall Township and 83 in Toms River, a white-knuckle stretch of narrow road that saw 9,000 accidents and 63 fatalities between 2000 and 2007, officials said. The $330 million construction project began a little over a year ago and is expected to be completed by the end of 2015.

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