Openings begin for new lanes on a widened NJ Turnpike

A five-year lane expansion project is finally beginning to provide relief to motorists who take the New Jersey Turnpike through the central portion of the Garden State.

The Turnpike Authority is opening the new northbound lanes this weekend, and if all goes according to plan and the weather does its part, the new southbound lanes will be opened next weekend.

The expansion, increasing lanes on the Turnpike from six to 12 between Exits 6 and 9, began in the summer of 2009. The construction created about 170 miles of new lanes that widened the toll road to compensate for increased volume over the years.

As the opening of the new lanes drew near in recent days, crews were hard at work painting lane stripes on the new part of the road, getting rid of barriers, and changing signs.

New Jersey Turnpike Authority spokesman Tom Feeney said it's the "biggest capacity expansion in the history of the Turnpike," a history that goes back 63 years.

Feeney said drivers who frequent the affected stretch of the Turnpike are all too familiar with the "almost epic delays" that have plagued the toll road in that area, especially on getaway days and holidays.

The Turnpike Authority also touts the fact that the $2.5 billion project was finished for $2.3 billion. It was funded through bonds that will be repaid with revenue from the last toll hike, which launched in October 2008 and was phased in until 2012.

"This was a project that was a very high priority, I think, for New Jersey for a lot of years, and it's been done well under budget and on time," Feeney said.

Among other things, the lane expansion moves a so-called "merge" of lanes that created a bottleneck about 25 miles south, to a less-heavily traveled part of the road.

"Essentially, by doubling capacity, we expect a lot of those bottleneck problems to go away," Feeney said.