Posted on 04/29/2021 10:31:06 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
A $48-million contract awarded March 23 to AECOM to study impacts of widening 34 miles of the most rural southern part of the 117.2-mile New Jersey Turnpike has upset state environmental activists who say the project conflicts with the state's push to combat climate change; officials say construction remains at least five years off.
The contract is the latest step in the overall $1.1-billion turnpike expansion plan outlined last year that focuses on addin a third lane in each direction to the section stretch between exits 1 and 4 through Camden County. But it also renewed criticism from advocates who say the project will boost greenhouse-gas emissions at a time when the state is investing heavily in cleaner energy and other strategies to reduce them.
AECOM, which did not respond to a request for comment, was chosen to do preliminary work on the widening, among 14 projects under the $24-billion capital program..
Transportation officials say public hearings have yet to be scheduled. Tom Feeney, a spokesman for the NJ Turnpike Authority, says it’s too early to tell whether adding a new lane in each direction would increase emissions, with impacts needing to be studied.
Also on the drawing board is a plan to double lanes from two to four in both directions on a three-mile turnpike section crossing Newark Bay closer to New York City, which would involve replacement or widening of three bridges and construction of a fourth bridge, estimated to cost $3.3 billion.
The new turnpike project would follow a $2.3-billion expansion completed several years ago along the 35-mile interchange 6 to 9 corridor.
(Excerpt) Read more at enr.com ...
-just south of exit 8a (Route 32 to just south of exit 9 (Route 18)
and
-just south of exit 6 (PA TP) to just south of exit 8a.
Riding tour buses to NYC through that stretch a couple of times in the early 2010s, I could see where they had to lengthen the bridges over the turnpike.
ff
Multiply by 10 will probably end up being the real cost. Same for doing the work.
Woke up, people!
NJ citizens need to move and live closer to their work, or work from home. This will reduce freeway traffic, eliminating this terrible, terrible red-violet (opposite of green) project.
But if this sad tragedy does happen, I wonder how many Emergency EV Charging Stations (EEVCS) they’ll put in...
One answer: Kalifornia highway history. Judging that history in many places is like trying to say which came first (the chicken or the egg), the highway building and highway expansions (more lanes) or the expansion of the suburbs.
The problem is I know from experience and observation with California that often the expansion (or building) of a highway led to expansion of suburbs that led to expansion of congestion that the highway expansion was supposedly going to relieve.
In time, one highway that was going to relieve congestion relieved from another highway proved to be temporary temporary solution worse.
I time the congestion on both highways grew back to the level the 2nd highway was supposedly going to change. Why? The 2nd highway was built in areas the suburbs were not that expanded into, but it and land in proximity to it stimulated massive new suburb development, which in time merely expanded the geographic range of congestion more than eliminating it. In time both the earlier highway and the later highway had equally bad congestion and even as bad the congestion level that was supposed to be relieved.
Am I saying land use laws should “halt” development every time? No.
I am saying the idea that any highway project to add a highway or expand one is justified on the idea of “relieving congestion” is often not true.
Often it is the real estate interests in gaining “government infrastructure” investment to make their own business model (suburban housing development) more profitable. Their developments will reduce the effectiveness of any relief of congestion.
Probably tied with Illinois.
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