Parkway widening will help down the road
Tuesday, July 7th, 2009
By: Fit Staff
mcampbell@whyy.org
By: Phil Gregory
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A 220 million dollar project to widen the Garden State Parkway between Tom's River and Stafford Township has begun. It promises to make getting to the Jersey Shore easier for the summer crowds, just not this summer.
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The highway will be widened from two lanes to three in each direction between mileposts 80 and 63. At a ceremony at the Forked River rest area, Governor Corzine said the project will relieve congestion and ease travel to the Jersey Shore while providing up to 2000 jobs. He says the work is partially funded by recent toll increases.
Corzine: Now do you want to do that, no. But would you rather have accidents, would you rather have 4, 5, 6 mile jam ups day after day. Do you want the economy hurting. I think the public is smart enough to figure that out.
Widening the parkway to route 72 is scheduled to be done by December 2011. It's the first of three phases that will eventually extend to milepost 30 at Somers Point.
When has building more highways ever served to relieve congestion? Adding more highway capacity is more likely to just attract more cars and put this stretch of road right back where it is today – except with higher tolls and millions of dollars spent. We never seem to get that… never seem to have any idea about what we want our states to look like 20 or 30 years from now.