new freeways for NJ

[YankeesFan]

hey everyone, i'm Tom, new here...

just wondering if there is ANY chance NJ will ever build a new freeway/tollway for northwest NJ? specially connecting I-95 (future 195) to I-80? this state is so crippled by lack of highways. (Rt 31, US 206, etc are worthless and are backed up always) the turnpike isn't practical for alot of us who don't live close enough to it to use it.

[SteveG1988]

Welcome to the board tom, i do beleive the reason that there are not many freeways and tollways in northwest new jersey is due to the era most of the NJ freeways were built, there was not that much demand for roads that far north west, then suburbia happened, bedroom communities, etc. I know NJ Transit is working on restoring some more rail lines up in that section over the Delaware river near I80 on a old alignment called the Lackawanna Cut-Off. It's proposed end would be Scranton PA via a bridge at the delaware water gap.

http://www.njtransit.com/tm/tm_servlet.srv?hdnPageAction=Project019To

It will probably serve some use to commuters in your area, as it will allow connections to philly,trenton,new york city, and anywhere amtrak goes as well.

[YankeesFan]

Steve, thanks for the post...do you happen to know how well mass transit is working in the state so far? i just don't see it as a solution realistic solution personally. the biggest concern for the northwest to trenton area traffic i have is trucks and inevitable growth...you have 18 wheelers constantly having to take 206 or 31, which in alot of areas (princeton, lawrence, i'm sure many more) are just two lane main streets.

this state really made a huge mistake when they didn't build the somerset freeway, and i think it's starting to get more attention. I hear traffic in Flemington near 31/202 is a nightmare. i know 206 during rush hour is just a disaster. these roads that were built 50 years ago haven't changed much and the people in charge continue to think that just adjusting traffic lights and whatnot will make these obsolete roads sufficient for 2011 and future traffic.

i know alot of people are concerned for farms and wetlands, but NJ should have thought about that years ago, i think it is just too late preserve some of these areas, we let all these businesses and homes go up, but then there are no roads to handle the new influx of traffic

[SteveG1988]

In my region mass transit seems to work pretty decently, if you work in NYC it is a 15 buck train ride on NJ transit from trenton, 1.50 to get to trenton from anywhere on the riverline route. Honestly it will releive a lot of congestion on I80 with commuters if they extend to scranton PA. Since there will be a faster alternative to take you into newark for transfers elsewhere. From trenton you can take SEPTA into philly, Amtrak to Virginia,or Boston (same if you go to New York via NJ Transit) connect to the riverline (light rail) and go to atlantic city once the connector opens up near the betsy ross bridge where you transfer trains.

[Alps]

NJ will not be building any new road miles. You'll get the occasional bypass (Hillsborough on US 206) or realignment (NJ 31, if it ever happens), that's about it.

[YankeesFan]

what about a I-195 widening? the traffic is bad from 295 to like exit 7 or 8...the whole thing should have been widened to 3 lanes years ago.

[Alps]

If you have ideas for things you would like to see, post them to Fictional Highways. If you're asking about actual plans, there are none.

[froggie]

Somerset Freeway wasn't a mistake...its travelshed is largely covered by US 1. The mistake was not getting a true north-south route from Trenton north (i.e. NJ 31).

[3467]

I am sure I have a NJ map somewhere that once showed plans for more NJ Freeways and expressways.I know NJ PA CT and NY had them along with dome of us in the Midwest(IL,IA and MO) I will try to find them

[YankeesFan]

If you have ideas for things you would like to see, post them to Fictional Highways. If you're asking about actual plans, there are none.

yeah i was asking if there are any official plans or studies whatnot. thanks for the info. I did post my ideas in the fictional section as well.

[NE2]

I guess US 1-9 Truck is a new freeway...

[jwolfer]

NJ will not be building any new road miles. You'll get the occasional bypass (Hillsborough on US 206) or realignment (NJ 31, if it ever happens), that's about it.

NJ is all about mass transit.  I read a study about widening US9 from Lakewood to The GSP at exit 83.  The road goes to 2 lanes and is really congested.  It was 25 years ago and I am sure it is only getting worse( I havent been to NJ since 1999) The official plans said to encourage more walking instead of widening the road.  That sums up NJ Transportation plans.  

NJ had plans for a big network of freeways in the 1960s.  Only parts of it were ever built. (even the "completed" freeways such as Route 18 and 55 end before their original planned ends)  I remember looking a the Exxon Map of NJ and getting excited about Route 74, the Driscoll expressway, I-695 and I-895.  None ever came to pass

I am no transportation planner or engineer but it seems to me that a few completed freeways would have gone a long way in preventing some of the current problems (ie truck traffic on 31 and 206... wouldn't be a problem if Somerset Freeway were completed)

[Alps]

I guess US 1-9 Truck is a new freeway...

Not sure it counts. It'll tie right into NJ 7, but there would still be a drawbridge. If you allow that exception, you would have the beginning of the "freeway" at 1/9, an exit at 1/9T, the bridge, and the two existing exits at Fish House and 508, although there's an EB "exit" for the old Newark Tpk. that's more of a street intersection.

[Compulov]

NJ is all about mass transit.  I read a study about widening US9 from Lakewood to The GSP at exit 83.  The road goes to 2 lanes and is really congested.  It was 25 years ago and I am sure it is only getting worse( I havent been to NJ since 1999) The official plans said to encourage more walking instead of widening the road.  That sums up NJ Transportation plans. 

I grew up in Lakewood and the intersection (NJ-88) where Madison Ave (4 lanes of US 9) became River Road (2 lanes) *sucked*. I had remembered reading about highway studies which suggested making 9 grade separated (and/or building a bypass) when I was younger, but that never happened, nor will it ever happen at this point. Land is too expensive to buy up nowadays. They've tweaked the intersection a bit (signal upgrade) and widened 9 to add another lane approaching the light going northbound, but it hasn't helped that much.

Unless something drastic happens, I don't think we'll ever see more freeways in NJ short of the occasional bypass. The state is too crowed, real estate is too expensive to buy up (thanks to being one large suburb of Philly and NYC), and there's just too much corruption in the upper echelons of the government to find the funding.

[YankeesFan]

they could just consider a new freeway from I-80 to I-95 in Trenton a LONG bypass...a guy can dream...

[roadman65]

they could just consider a new freeway from I-80 to I-95 in Trenton a LONG bypass...a guy can dream...

I grew up in New Jersey and lived for 3 of them at the US 1 and Ford Avenue intersection in Woodbridge Township.  It took NJDOT years to finally upgrade that as it was bad back in the 80's.  Look also how long it took for them to put the parking garage at Metro Park Station?  It was needed decades before it was opened in the 90's.

One thing I credit New Jersey for is the amount of Jersey Freeways built.  Most states have more signals on roads in the urban areas coming into larger cities, but look at the Garden State.  US 22 has more signals away from Newark than near it, hence New Providence Road in Mountainside being the easternmost traffic light on the Newark to Cincinnati route.  Then NJ 4 is almost all signal less and look what they did to NJ 17 north of US 46.  That was something by eliminating all the signalized intersections  in the latter there!  The only bad thing about NJ 17 is the fact when the current NJ 3 and NJ 17 interchange was completed in the early 70's, it makes traveling straight through on NJ 17 more tedious as you have to manuver through the S turns to the south of NJ 3 that once had a straight road crossing NJ 3 to the west due to the never built NJ 17 freeway to I-280.  It made traveling from WB to NB and SB to EB better for that is the most traffic through there, but more driving for NJ 17 straight through motorists as it makes the route slightly longer than it was previous.

[cpzilliacus]

NJ will not be building any new road miles. You'll get the occasional bypass (Hillsborough on US 206) or realignment (NJ 31, if it ever happens), that's about it.

NJ is all about mass transit.  I read a study about widening US9 from Lakewood to The GSP at exit 83.  The road goes to 2 lanes and is really congested.  It was 25 years ago and I am sure it is only getting worse( I havent been to NJ since 1999) The official plans said to encourage more walking instead of widening the road.  That sums up NJ Transportation plans.

Many elected officials in many states (not just New Jersey) claim that the "future is transit" and "future improvements should be limited to transit."  But those claims ignore the reality that transit works well to serve dense urban areas (like New York's Mid-Town Manhattan and Philadelphia's Center City (both served by N.J. Transit)) - but not especially well in a dispersed, suburban place like most of the Garden State.

Those elected officials are often pandering to the "anti-auto vanguard" (as Professor James Dunn, Jr. of Rutgers University at Camden wrote in his superb late 1990's book Driving Forces: The Automobile, Its Enemies, and the Politics of Mobility.

But no matter how much pandering is done, the private automobile remains the overwhelming choice of a large percentage of North American persons needing to travel.  Even in New Jersey.

NJ had plans for a big network of freeways in the 1960s.  Only parts of it were ever built. (even the "completed" freeways such as Route 18 and 55 end before their original planned ends)  I remember looking a the Exxon Map of NJ and getting excited about Route 74, the Driscoll expressway, I-695 and I-895.  None ever came to pass

Don't forget the Route 92 extension proposed by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

I am no transportation planner or engineer but it seems to me that a few completed freeways would have gone a long way in preventing some of the current problems (ie truck traffic on 31 and 206... wouldn't be a problem if Somerset Freeway were completed)

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of its toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

[mgk920]

NJ will not be building any new road miles. You'll get the occasional bypass (Hillsborough on US 206) or realignment (NJ 31, if it ever happens), that's about it.

NJ is all about mass transit.  I read a study about widening US9 from Lakewood to The GSP at exit 83.  The road goes to 2 lanes and is really congested.  It was 25 years ago and I am sure it is only getting worse( I havent been to NJ since 1999) The official plans said to encourage more walking instead of widening the road.  That sums up NJ Transportation plans.

Many elected officials in many states (not just New Jersey) claim that the "future is transit" and "future improvements should be limited to transit."  But those claims ignore the reality that transit works well to serve dense urban areas (like New York's Mid-Town Manhattan and Philadelphia's Center City (both served by N.J. Transit)) - but not especially well in a dispersed, suburban place like most of the Garden State.

Those elected officials are often pandering to the "anti-auto vanguard" (as Professor James Dunn, Jr. of Rutgers University at Camden wrote in his superb late 1990's book Driving Forces: The Automobile, Its Enemies, and the Politics of Mobility.

But no matter how much pandering is done, the private automobile remains the overwhelming choice of a large percentage of North American persons needing to travel.  Even in New Jersey.

As has been mentioned before, for the past 10-15 years now, the Dutch government has been laying out BILLIONS of Euros per year in a game of 'catch up' for the prior couple of decades where their previous governments religiously followed such a policy.  They refused to upgrade their major roads - and the traffic came anyways.

NJ had plans for a big network of freeways in the 1960s.  Only parts of it were ever built. (even the "completed" freeways such as Route 18 and 55 end before their original planned ends)  I remember looking a the Exxon Map of NJ and getting excited about Route 74, the Driscoll expressway, I-695 and I-895.  None ever came to pass

Don't forget the Route 92 extension proposed by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.

I am no transportation planner or engineer but it seems to me that a few completed freeways would have gone a long way in preventing some of the current problems (ie truck traffic on 31 and 206... wouldn't be a problem if Somerset Freeway were completed)

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of it's toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

How long before all of US 1 between I-295 and I-287 might be fully interstate-compatible???





Mike

[cpzilliacus]

NJ will not be building any new road miles. You'll get the occasional bypass (Hillsborough on US 206) or realignment (NJ 31, if it ever happens), that's about it.

NJ is all about mass transit.  I read a study about widening US9 from Lakewood to The GSP at exit 83.  The road goes to 2 lanes and is really congested.  It was 25 years ago and I am sure it is only getting worse( I havent been to NJ since 1999) The official plans said to encourage more walking instead of widening the road.  That sums up NJ Transportation plans.

Many elected officials in many states (not just New Jersey) claim that the "future is transit" and "future improvements should be limited to transit."  But those claims ignore the reality that transit works well to serve dense urban areas (like New York's Mid-Town Manhattan and Philadelphia's Center City (both served by N.J. Transit)) - but not especially well in a dispersed, suburban place like most of the Garden State.

Those elected officials are often pandering to the "anti-auto vanguard" (as Professor James Dunn, Jr. of Rutgers University at Camden wrote in his superb late 1990's book Driving Forces: The Automobile, Its Enemies, and the Politics of Mobility.

But no matter how much pandering is done, the private automobile remains the overwhelming choice of a large percentage of North American persons needing to travel.  Even in New Jersey.

As has been mentioned before, for the past 10-15 years now, the Dutch government has been laying out BILLIONS of Euros per year in a game of 'catch up' for the prior couple of decades where their previous governments religiously followed such a policy.  They refused to upgrade their major roads - and the traffic came anyways.

Not just the Netherlands.

Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway have been investing very large sums of money in motorway-standard highway projects.  Within the past few years, Finland completed the E18 motorway between Helsinki and Turku, replacing a dangerous and deficient arterial highway.  Sweden is building an underground small-circumference beltway around downtown Stockholm, and in 2000, the Øresund Bridge [Tunnel] provided a fixed link for highway and railroad traffic for the first time since the Ice Age.  A few years earlier, Denmark completed the Great Belt Fixed Link, so that traffic from the island of Zealand (where Copenhagen is located) was finally able to get to "mainland" Denmark without having to take a ferry.

[Alps]

How long before all of US 1 between I-295 and I-287 might be fully interstate-compatible???





Mike

Never. But it may be a Jersey freeway some day. The Penns Neck bypass stalled but the plans are there, so ultimately something will happen there. I think the major issue that would get in the way is the two long stretches with no grade separation: South and North Brunswick, and north of the Raritan. It'll be a lot easier to clear out the other isolated lights.

[Beltway]

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of its toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

Then why didn't the Turnpike Authority object to 60 miles of toll-free I-295 and I-195 being built paralleling the Turnpike, with freeway connections at either end?

[cpzilliacus]

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of its toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

Then why didn't the Turnpike Authority object to 60 miles of toll-free I-295 and I-195 being built paralleling the Turnpike, with freeway connections at either end?

That's a good question, and I don't know the answer.  But a reason might be found in the (relative) amount of lane capacity on the Turnpike south of Exit 4 (N.J. 73) - at least for now, and only two lanes (in each direction) from there south to Exit 1, about 35 miles. 

[Alps]

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of its toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

Then why didn't the Turnpike Authority object to 60 miles of toll-free I-295 and I-195 being built paralleling the Turnpike, with freeway connections at either end?

Valid point. I-295 was built as a series of US 130 upgrades, mostly after the Turnpike was already completed. I can't fathom why the Turnpike Authority would have accepted this, unless they simply didn't have enough power to object yet. Perhaps by 1970 they had acquired the necessary clout to influence the state. This is conjecture but seems to be the only reasonable idea.

[Beltway]

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of its toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

Then why didn't the Turnpike Authority object to 60 miles of toll-free I-295 and I-195 being built paralleling the Turnpike, with freeway connections at either end?

Valid point. I-295 was built as a series of US 130 upgrades, mostly after the Turnpike was already completed. I can't fathom why the Turnpike Authority would have accepted this, unless they simply didn't have enough power to object yet. Perhaps by 1970 they had acquired the necessary clout to influence the state. This is conjecture but seems to be the only reasonable idea.

Because NJTP knew that they would be crushed with traffic without I-295, or that they would have to widen it to 8 to 12 lanes?  It does fine trafficwise and revenue-wise today with 4 to 6 lanes.  Also that part of NJTP has very widely spaced interchanges, while I-295 has closely spaced interchanges which is good for local access.

Likewise the NJTP segment north of Trenton is being massively widened to 12 lanes, whereas if I-95 had been built that segment of NJTP would likely do fine trafficwise and revenue-wise today with 6 lanes.

[qguy]

The Somerset Freeway was killed by a combination of things (as I understand it):  (1) NIMBYism among persons in Princeton who did not want I-95 spoiling their part of New Jersey; and (2) Opposition by the New Jersey Turnpike Authority - I think the Turnpike Authority  correctly anticipated that a "free" Somerset Freeway would divert a lot of its toll-paying traffic to a nearby "free" road.

Then why didn't the Turnpike Authority object to 60 miles of toll-free I-295 and I-195 being built paralleling the Turnpike, with freeway connections at either end?

I was on the PATP/I-95 connection project community advisory committee for over 15 years. While objections by the NJTA probably did play a role, the biggest factor by far was wealthy and politially well-connected NIMBYs along the Somerset corridor.

In the 60s & 70s, the PA Turnpike Commission (PTC) and PennDOT planned and designed a simple double-trumpet connection between the two highways (in the NW quadrant of the point of crossing). In fact, there was even some initial construction of parts of a toll plaza.

In 1981 or so (I forget exactly when), then-Senator Bill Bradley (D-NJ) convinced Congress to delist the planned segment of I-95 between Trenton and New Brunswick. He did this in response to the aforemenioned NIMBYs. The legislation 1) prohibited NJDOT (or anyone else) from constructing I-95 through the Somerset Valley area, and 2) mandated construction of a high-speed connection between the PATP and I-95 in PA somewhere at or near the point of crossing, the exact configuration of which to be decided by the stakeholders, with I-95 being re-routed at the interchange along the PA & NJ Turnpikes.

This forced the PTC and PennDOT to scrap all plans and start over again. (It has taken this long to get all the stakeholders to agree to a design, move the design through the various phases to construction, and simultaneously secure funding.)