By Pat Loeb

OCEAN CITY, N.J. (CBS) — Workers have begun taking down a fence along the Garden State Parkway near Ocean City, after residents and visitors complained that it was unsightly and of no apparent use.

The fence, put up as part of a $7-million antiterrorism project, was supposed to protect the Great Egg Harbor Bridge from a terrorist attack — a notion that local residents find ludicrous, not just because the bridge is an unlikely target but also because a chain link fence hardly seems terror-proof.

Christopher Hutton lives close to the bridge — which, he notes, spans a body of water.

“All you’d need is a little rowboat, or a boat of any kind,” he points out, “and you could get on it anyway.”

Not to mention that the fence has a gate which was often observed standing open.

Taxpayers such as Hutton regret the fence was put up in the first place, but he’s not sure that taking it down is sound.

“That’s just more money wasted because you have to pay to take it down now for a fence you didn’t need in the first place,” he says.

Neither the fence company nor the South Jersey Turnpike Authority, which hired it, returned calls seeking comment.