EAST WINDSOR, N.J. - Ground was broken yesterday on a $2.7 billion project to ease a long-standing bottleneck on the New Jersey Turnpike, one of the nation's busiest roads.
Traffic backs up for miles in the section where 12 lanes are reduced to 10 and finally to six, and motorists now will have to endure construction-related delays until the project is finished in 2014.
The turnpike carries an average of 680,000 vehicles daily, including many headed to New York City and Philadelphia. Drivers dread the traffic backups caused by the bottleneck.
The highway now has six lanes south of Cranbury and Jamesburg. Above that point, it is wider, with one set of lanes for cars only and another for trucks, buses, and cars.
The project will increase the lanes to 12 and extend the divided lanes along the 25 miles between Cranbury and the Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange, near Mansfield. Ten miles of roadway between Cranbury and East Brunswick will be expanded from 10 lanes to 12.
Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti, executive director of the Turnpike Authority, said construction-related delays will be minimized by allowing existing lanes to continue to function. The six lanes in the narrowest segment of the construction area will serve as the inner roadway for cars after the project is completed. New lanes will belong to the outer roadway, which will be for cars and trucks.
The project will add 170 lane miles of new pavement to the Turnpike. Pipelines and fiber-optic cable already are being moved, Gutierrez-Scaccetti said. Visible construction won't start until next month.
The project is being funded entirely by state dollars, a distinction Gov. Corzine said gives New Jersey more control. The widening effort is part of a 10-year capital improvement program at the Turnpike Authority totaling $7 billion.
Turnpike officials say the project will create or sustain 18,000 jobs, with 4,500 going to construction workers. It "has the benefit of creating jobs," Corzine said, but "the primary goal is to correct the problem with regard to transportation and congestion."
New Jersey residents have some of the nation's most time-consuming daily commutes, according to U.S. Census data. They typically spend 29.4 minutes driving to work, compared with a national average of 25.1 minutes.
Jeff Tittel, director of the New Jersey chapter of the Sierra Club, opposes the widening project, which he said will destroy wetlands and extend suburban sprawl into more farmland.
"Widening roads without reducing demand does little to ease traffic," Tittel said. "The more lanes you build, the more development you promote, and the more cars you will get."
The Sierra Club also opposes the $8.7 billion effort to build a new rail tunnel under the Hudson River, between New Jersey and Manhattan. That project, which began last month, is expected to eliminate a rail bottleneck.
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