9 Years to Rebuild I-78 in NJ?

[Pete from Boston]

It could have something to do with the fact that the road and nearby parallel roads runs at near capacity already.  To permanently close lanes would create havoc on the overall travel system.  And people don't want their interchange closed, and it would only tie up traffic on the detour routes as well.

And NJDOT doesn't want the public knowing that they've built virtually no new pieces of the highway network in the last 20 years with a very small number of extensions.  Pretty soon all of the highways are going to be widened until the 1960's ROW acquisition they're sitting on can no longer hold the traffic and NJDOT is going to have to break down and start taking land and building highways through neighborhoods again, and they're going to have to do it at a pace that rivals what it was in the 1960's.  Go to historicaerials and watch in amazement as entire 30-mile segments of interstate go from houses to lanes within a gap of 4 years between photos.

If they did so today, or even if they did so twenty years ago, it would not only drain the public coffers, but require a tax increase that would precipitate a massive tax revolt. 

New Jersey will never see highway building on the scale of 1960 again.  Whatever other factors are in the mix, you can't expect to approach these problems without facing that fact.

[Alps]

48 of the 50 states will never see highway building on the scale of 1960 again.  Whatever other factors are in the mix, you can't expect to approach these problems without facing that fact.

FTFY. Only Texas and Arizona seem to have rampant construction.