A major multi-section repaving project kicks off Friday in Middlesex County and could cause some major headaches for drivers from now through most of the fall.

According to Steve Schapiro, the director of communications for the New Jersey Department of Transportation, milling and resurfacing work will begin place Friday night, starting at 9 p.m. on Amboy Avenue in Edison underneath Route 1.

Crews won’t work over the weekend, but work will resume again next Monday evening, from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m., and continue for the rest of next week on that same nighttime schedule.

“They’ve got a lot of work to do putting in new curves, replacing the inlets and grates, doing some repair to the roadway,” he said.

Schapiro said the goal is to get all of that work done before the start of the school year, right after Labor Day.

The comes the bigger hassle: After that, work on Route 1 will begin.

“It’s going to be approximately 5 miles of Route 1 in both directions and this is a very wide section of Route 1 — four lanes and three lanes for most of it, so there’s a lot of travel lanes to resurface,” he said.

“The work is going to take place Monday through Thursday nights from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.. They’ll be resurfacing Route 1 essentially from where 287 goes up to the Garden State Parkway.”

Roadwork will take place between Campus Drive and Deer Park Place in South Brunswick, and also from Townsley Street in Edison to Production Way in Woodbridge.

Schapiro said work will be done in both the north and southbound lanes but “there always will be at least one lane open and maintained throughout the construction.”

He stressed most of the work will take place after dark, “where they will have single and sometimes double lane closures. (On) the section of the road that has four lanes, they may also do some work during the day where they would close one lane from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.’

The project is scheduled to last until the end of November.

“Knowing that it is an area that has lots of traffic and congestion, that’s why the project is designed to be done mostly at night,” he said.

Schapiro said no work will be done on weekends, so as to minimize traffic congestion around the Menlo Park Mall and other nearby shopping centers, but “it’s always a good idea whenever there’s construction in the area if you can, use alternate routes."

“Hopefully traffic won’t be too bad in that area while they’re working.”

He said during construction drivers should “slow down, be patient, allow for a little extra time to get through that area.”

Schapiro said all roads need to be resurfaced on a regular basis, about once every 10 years or so, and this project is part of a regular maintenance operation.

Once the repaving work is completed on Route 1, a mile-long section of Route 32 in South Brunswick will also be rehabilitated and resurfaced.

The total cost for the work is estimated at $8.4 million.

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

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