In my job, I have had to travel to many, many places. Just to get to my office, I have to take two interstates. To get to my job site today, I could take those two same interstates plus a couple of U.S. Routes to get to my destination. For tomorrow, I think there are up to 5 interstates, 4 separate tolls, and a slew of off-ramps. The purpose of this blog is not to complain about my job, but rather to classify the roads, for better or for worse, and their conditions throughout Pennsylvania and New Jerssey.
Interstate 95
I-95, how useful you are. I have traveled up and down I-95 for as long as I can remember, from Maine to Philadelphia to Florida. I remember how my mom would always complain about this road and having to travel it to get down to grandma's house. I think, without 95, that the backroads all the way down there would be perhaps a little more of a headache.
Recent construction on the George C. Platt Bridge (for the next two years) has relegated me to take 95 to get up to the Walt Whitman Bridge rather than taking me through the city's shooting-est and rapiest neighborhood. So thank you, I-95. However, any time you take this road around the city, the potential for disaster of a traffic jam is there. On the weekends and getting on the wrong time of day, or perhaps during the summer baseball months, your whole day could be ruined by an expected 10 minute drive turning into hours creeping up the road. My travels also have me eventually meeting up with I-95 at exit 7A on the NJ Turnpike. This portion of 95 is fantastic. Don't get me wrong, the propensity of a New York driver to completely irritate me to the point of screaming like a lunatic in the confines of my car is much greater, but with only a couple exits every now and then and its ability to keep me away from most NY City traffic, it is a great stretch of road. Just do not breath the air as it smells cancery.
Interstate 76
I-76 Is used daily, but mostly a short stretch of it. It has the ultra necessary Walt Whitman Bridge - the key piece to my work day. I have mixed feelings about this road. The WW Bridge in general is HORRIBLE!!! At the times I cross it, leaving or coming back to PA for work, I rarely get held up in traffic. The pavement and seams in the road, though, well, that is the problem. I counted 108 bumps on average over the course of one week, one way entering PA on the WW Bridge. I am not talking about slight road dips. 108 times over the course of the ascent, apex, and descent of the bridge, my car gets pounded by the shitty road conditions. And the fact I pay $5 every goddamn day to cross that bridge and undoubtedly advance the decay of my car is about as frustrating as waiting in line at a Russian McDonalds. Beyond the bridge, I-76 kind of fizzles into obscurity into Route 42 and ultimately the Atlantic City Expressway.
Interstate 295
At one time, the bane of my existence. For what seemed like 5 years, the road was torn up, shifted, scooted, shrouded, crowded, corroded, caved in, intolerable, un-maintained, cracked up, jacked up, backed up, unkempt, nightmare-inducing, fear-reeking road. Construction went on and on for years at almost every phase of it in New Jersey. Losing the length of an on-ramp from the back roads and having it replaced with a stop sign would back up traffic EVERYWHERE. I tried many varying entry points onto to I-295 to no improvement for years. Once you were on it (at the end of a long day), I swear you could look over and see a family of turtles walk past you.
Yet, in the year 2012, construction finally seems to be finished in the middle of this interstate. I think it becomes smooth sailing when you get south of exit 26, but gets a little backed up towards the northern end. It is also one of the least plowed roads. It is almost like the state of New Jersey forces you to take the Turnpike during a snow storm. There are also several patches of concrete-mix asphalt that make driving on it rather loud inside the car, making speakerphone voice conversations difficult.
Interstate 195
I-195 is special to me in that I believe this is the division between north and south New Jersey. You want to think we are all the same state, you would be dead wrong. In such a small state, you have fans of Philadelphia, New York, and even some New Jersey teams. I would never root for one of the New Jersey teams as they are up in Newark and do not serve me any purpose. However, if you live north of 195, you may just be up to an hour away from these places (even the NY football teams play in New Jersey, but up north). If you root for the New York/New Jersey teams, then you are an asshole, I mean, you are a North Jerseyan.
Oh yeah, I got sidetracked. I-195 is very boring, as is this blog entry. Never a problem on this road to date, and I have been traveling it for about 10 years now.
Interstate 78
Ugh. The road that takes me to Jersey City. I really hate this road, as it means I have driven very far already and am possibly going to have a disaster of a day. This road really serves one purpose - get people to New York. Two lanes is not enough for that. The Turnpike, parkway, and route 1/9 converge after one toll booth from like 12 lanes to 2. And it stays backed up for a couple miles, coming to a maddening crawl. However, once you get past that first exit (14A), you can see the Statue of Liberty and traffice is suddenly not so bad. Most of the drive time is spent on an overpass though, but after the merge it is generally smooth sailing. I have not (nor hope to ever) driven on this road during snow.
Interstate 287
A road that is easy to get on, but insane to get off. The tollbooth to get on the parkway at the south end of 287 is I think maybe 10 lanes, filing down to 1 lane with only 100 feet to spare. It is a slow crawl nightmare and you will see the WORST of people. I find it is generally not so bad to just every now and then let up the gas and keep straight. One day an accident happened 95 feet from the tollbooth, thus giving us only really 5 feet to merge. It was one of the worst days ever. I take this road maybe once or twice a year - it is good to access the Oranges and a good throughway to get some places in northcentral New Jersey. Usually though when I travel this road, it is for the entire length.
Interstate 80
I made a wrong turn on this road several years ago going to a wedding and turned around when we saw signs for the Poconos. What a wrong turn (before I owned a GPS and my companion refused to listen to my directions)! I most recently had a little trist with this road when I worked a couple days at Lafayette. Man that drive sucked to that point and every time I have ever been on this road it has rained. And in recent times, there is a lot of construction and the lanes are marked with temporary reflective stickers on the ground that are not very visible in the rain. Traffic also seemingly backs up for no reason at all.
New Jersey Turnpike
I hate to say it, but I have grown to really love an appreciate the NJTP. Yes, tolls keep going up and up. Yes construction has been going on for as long as I can remember and will go on for longer than I can see. They are expanding a Trucks/Buses lane down the NJTP for several more miles and adding some extra exits between Exit 6 and Exit 8A. The construction is not bad, in my opinion. Except for when I am on it at 5 in the morning and they still have one lane shut down because they are running late. Minor inconvenience. I would rather be stopped still earlier in my trip than after having been on this road for 2 hours.
I used to have to drive the entire length of the NJTP to get to work, one period for about 6 months straight. And I had to be up there at 6:30 every day. It would cost me $30/day to go to work (before I had a work truck). I was driving my then father in law's car, who had a bench warrant for an unpaid ticket. I would get pulled over by the same cops day in, day out. Eventually whenever a cop got behind me, I would just pre-emptively pull over. Sometimes they had the cuffs out, some times not. But they always appreciated me doing that for them and they would often just let me go on my own without running my information. I even had to change a tire on the same car, the side that faces the highway with a very limited shoulder. A trooper pulled up behind me, "protecting" my car, and assisted me. I have no complaints about the cops there. If you do 90, you will probably get pulled over. You can top off around 75 with no problems. If that is not fast enough for you, then go to Hell.
However, being a main throughway for New Jersey, the NJTP attracts a lot of traffic from Virginia and New York. When you see these license plates in front of you, do EVERYTHING YOU CAN to get past them. The cars in NY and VA must not have speedometers. Their drivers will be going 45 in a 65 one minute, I will pass them, get back into the lane (at around 70 - 75 mph) only to have them come back up my ass and eventually pass me, just to go back to 45 mph again. They are maddening and should not be allowed to drive. There, I said it.
Plus, since you pay to drive on this road, New Jersey takes great care of this road. Even during construction, snow is plowed to the point where almost all lanes are clear, and I feel safe on it. A couple deaths occur on the NJTP every year, but to be safe, you must always keep your eyes open for your surroundings. A truck wobble here, a car carrier tipping over at the trucks/buses/cars only lanes merge by 8A there, and the NJTP can quickly become a nightmare. However, I must say, I have mostly had pleasant drives.
Garden State Parkway
The first 60 miles of this road can suck, the middle 60 are not so bad (mostly through forests-however, they do tend to knock it from 2 lanes to 1 without warning), and the last 60 have to be like some of the worst managed roads ever. Not in a maintenance sense, as they are fine condition wise. Once you get past exit 129, man, you better have given yourself enough time. The drivers are reckless, rude assholes. Nobody would hesitate to cut you off. The traffice backs up for miles. Although New Jersey has done a lot to manage tolls on this road, elminating toll booths to reduce stoppage, one a normal Parkway driver gets to a tollbooth, it seems like a brand new, foreign, and confusing thing to them. I lose patience very easily from exit 129 to 136 (the location of my office in Cranford). Driving this road up to the 150+ exit numbers is extremely exhausting.
U.S. 1
This road, while well intentioned, is horrible. There is not one pleasant portion of this road in New Jersey. It travels from Maine to Key West, Florida, but it still sucks. When people drive on Route 1 through New Jersey, they will be left believing that NJ is indeed the armpit of the United States. Stretches of road backed up for no reason. Several metropolitan areas feeding the traffic delays. And, after you pass the New Brunswick area, the road, when combined with Route 9, feels like one big off-ramp. Your GPS will explode if you make a wrong turn. Ever try to MapQuest something up in that area? Every direction is practically for every bend in the god forsaken road up there. You do not feel like you are on a steady road and, unless you are up there every single day, you will have no confidence that you took the right exit. Also, when it is plowed, it is usually just one lane, that takes its own direction. Poor, poor, but ultimately necessary road. I have been late several times or gotten home in the late evening hours because of this piece of shit off-ramp resembling highway.
U.S. 206
A poor man's Route 130, I am rather indifferent to this road. I am learning more about it with some jobs up around or in Trenton. There are a lot of neighborhood cut throughs and just the right amount of gas stations and convenience stores. I even have taken 206 up to Lafayette, which is a haul. It is well maintained for the most part, and not always backed up until you get to its junctions with interstates and the NJTP. A pretty decent amount of stoplights though and a feeling like you are too far away from the other major roads make this one of the more less traveled roads.
U.S. 130
A more prominent version of 206, Route 130 is a mixed bag. It has long stretches without lights and traffice, then has traffic lights literally sometimes every 50 feet. It passes through my home town of Cinnaminson and was a main artery for me to get to my old apartment in Gloucester City, accesses every major bridge, merges with 295 a couple times, and eventually dies off somewhere around New Brunswick. Again, it is hit or miss, and you have to know which portions of this road will benefit you in avoiding traffic on the major throughways. I take it mostly to get up to some spots in Hamilton/Trenton as well as our lab in Dayton. I do not recommend it as your main roadway when coming down south. The interstates and NJTP are better options for long travels, regardless of what I may have said about them earlier.
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