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$2.7 billion will be spent to increase lanes from East Brunswick to Pa. Turnpike interchange
BY TOM HESTER SR.
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
State officials broke ground Thursday in East Windsor on a $2.7 billion project that will widen the New Jersey Turnpike, one of the nation's busiest highways.
The project will increase the number of lanes from 6 and 10 to 12 and keep the lanes divided along a 25-mile stretch of the roadway between Cranbury and the Pennsylvania Turnpike interchange near Mansfield. Another 10 miles of roadway will be expanded from 10 lanes to 12 between Cranbury and East Brunswick.
Presently, traffic frequently backs up along the stretch that will be widened as 12 lanes are reduced to 10 and than 6. The turnpike carries an average 680,000 vehicles daily and is a major East Coast link between New York and Boston in the north and Philadelphia and Washington in the south.
The project will add 170 miles of new roadway. Construction is expected cause traffic delays until the widening is completed in 2014 but actual work will not begin until August.Gov. Jon Corzine took part in the groundbreaking. The project is being funded with state money, a distinction he said gives his administration more control. Over the next decade, the Turnpike Authority plans to spend $7 billion to widen the roadway.
One group that is not happy is the Sierra Club of New Jersey, led by Jeff Tittel, an outspoken critic of the project and the new commuter train tunnel between Hudson County and Manhattan.
"This project should take a hike instead of hiking our tolls,'' Tittel said of the turnpike widening.
Tittel said the Corzine administration did not look at other alternatives or complete proper environmental reviews.
"This widening project will do nothing to solve the state's transportation needs,'' he said. "It will just mean more sprawl, more traffic, and more pollution for the people of New Jersey, who will be spending more money to be stuck in traffic longer. We have to triple our tolls to pay for this project because the state hasn't done a proper environmental review or looked for alternatives, therefore it cannot qualify for federal dollars. It is now up to the taxpayers and toll payers of New Jersey to pay for this project.''
Tittel said the widening comes as motor vehicle use is declining and construction will go through open space and parklands, cause more flooding and water pollution, increase state debt and spark more development from Middlesex to Burlington counties, an area that is presently mainly farmland. .
"This project in its current form is the opposite of smart growth; it is dumb growth and a huge waste of money," he said.
