Route 206 bypass will FINALLY be completed ... when?

Right now, it’s a short road to nowhere.

Soon however, the New Jersey Department of Transportation has promised to re-start work on the Route 206 bypass in Hillsborough.

“They are slated to start again in the spring of this year and it will take probably two years to complete — they said probably 2020 was the timeline the state had given us,” said Gloria McCauley, the mayor of Hillsborough.

She’s planning to sit down with state transportation officials by the end of this month to review the situation.

“We’re going to regroup with them and see if the plan is moving forward and make sure that the project is still on cue, and get more information on where we’re at," she said.

After talk about building a bypass road next to Route 206 for decades, construction finally began 7 years ago, and work on one section of the bypass — a 1.7 mile stretch of the roadway — was completed in 2013.

Nothing has happened ever since, and other highway projects had been put on hold, because state lawmakers and the governor had not been able to reach agreement on how to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund for an extended period of time.

An agreement was finally reached on funding the TTF by raising the gas tax in New Jersey by 23 cents a gallon, an increase that took effect more than a year ago.

Last summer, a spokesman for the DOT confirmed a plan was in the works to re-start work on the bypass in 2018.

McCauley stressed completing the project is very important — to traffic and do a thriving downtown.

“If people want to get home and go through Hillsborough they would take the bypass route, and obviously when they want to come in through downtown and shop they would come right through the middle of (Route) 206. The master plan’s downtown area would bring in shops and retail and those kinds of amenities," she said.

Once the 3.7-mile long bypass is completed, it will extend from Old Somerville Road to Mountainview Road.

State and federal funds are being used to complete the project, estimated to cost around $100 million.

You can contact reporter David Matthau at David.matthau@townsquaremedia.com