Rush-hour traffic relief coming for more than 120K NJ commuters — but there’s one big catch

Tens of thousands of New Jersey drivers will get major rush-hour traffic relief when the state fixes a perpetually bottlenecked, crash-plagued section of Route 9 north — but getting it done won’t be speedy, officials said.

The busy highway’s often-clogged one-lane exit onto the Garden State Parkway in Sayreville will be widened and another lane will be added — by 2030, according to state DOT officials.

The headache-inducing strip of roadway is sometimes backed up for more than a mile — as roughly 120,000 vehicles use it daily, according to the agency.

Bottlenecked section of Route 9 north. Wikimedia Commons/Famartin

“The queue to enter the GSP routinely extends a mile or more, causing numerous accidents and delays,” the DOT said, according to NJ.com.

The revamp calls for widening the center lane of Route 9 north into a  “decision lane,” where drivers can either continue north or take the Parkway exit. It will also lengthen exit ramps to help curb accidents, officials said.

There have been 80 crashes on the less-than-half-mile stretch of Route 9 north between Bordentown Avenue and the Parkway ramp local lanes — 56 of which were rear-end collisions from vehicles backed up traffic at the exit , DOT officials told the outlet.

The timeframe for those accidents wasn’t immediately clear.

Another 20 crashes involved vehicles traveling in the same direction and sideswiping each other, the outlet reported.

A total of 71% of morning rush hour drivers on the busy Route 9 corridor use the Parkway North exit, along with 65% in the evening, including NJ Transit commuter buses, according to the DOT.

Plans call for adding a new exit lane on Route 9 north. NJDOT

Construction is scheduled to begin in fall 2029 but “it is too soon” to have a cost estimate, said Steve Schapiro, a spokesman for the agency.

“NJDOT has a project in preliminary engineering that aims to significantly reduce traffic congestion and crashes along Route 9 north leading up to the Garden State Parkway entrance ramp by widening and restriping the roadway,” Schapiro said.

Plans for the project also include shifting existing lanes to allow more separation between traffic continuing on Route 9 North and traffic exiting to the Parkway.

Moving the lanes will make room for wider, 408-foot-long deceleration lanes on the exit to the Parkway to be built, according to the DOT.