AASHTO Journal, 31 October 2014
The largest capacity expansion project ever for the New Jersey Turnpike is now opening for traffic, on-time and under-budget, said the New Jersey Turnpike Authority.
Gov. Chris Christie, who appoints most of the agency’s board members, and Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox, who chairs the NJTA board in addition to running the state transportation department, joined turnpike officials to hail the work.
The project built 170 more lane miles in a 35-mile congested turnpike corridor of central New Jersey, east and northeast of Trenton, at a cost of $2.3 billion compared with a budgeted $2.5 billion.
That included three lanes in each direction over 25 miles between interchanges 6 and 8, doubling the highway capacity in that zone, plus another lane each way from exits 8 to 9. The combined sections now have 12 total lanes all the way from exits 6 to 9.
The work has been under way more than four years. The authority said at its peak the construction “ranked as the largest active roadway project in the Western Hemisphere,” and employed more than 1,000 workers a day.
Northbound lanes opened the weekend of Oct. 25-26; southbound lanes were slotted to open Nov. 1-2.
In remarks at an Oct. 24 turnpike service area to mark the project’s conclusion, Christie said opening the original turnpike 62 years ago “addressed a pent-up need for additional highway capacity in our state and helped fuel the longest period of economic growth in New Jersey’s history.” Now, he said, “with the new lanes … we are providing capacity New Jersey needs to prosper in the 21st Century.”
Fox focused on the costs imposed by the corridor’s congestion that this project was designed to ease.
“For many years, commuters and truckers have lived with near-daily delays through this economically vital corridor,” he said. “We understand the costs associated with those delays, and we understand the frustrations felt by the drivers who endure them. This project should serve notice that, given the resources, New Jersey is able to design and deliver solutions to its most pressing transportation challenges.”
Besides the new lanes, the project included constructing a new interchange toll plaza and widening another. It built or altered 102 bridges and culverts, installed 123 miles of guard rail and resurfaced about 150 lane miles of existing roadway.
It was all done with no federal or state tax dollars, the authority said. Instead, NJTA bonds sold for the widening project are being repaid from a two-phase toll increase that has been in full effect since 2012.