What to Know
- The Gateway Project, which seeks to repair Camden's Medical Mile, continues Thursday with the beginning of nearly 6 months of road closures.
- The project will be completed in 3 phases and will affect Haddon Avenue, Mount Ephraim Avenue and Pine Street.
- The section of Mount Ephraim Avenue between Haddon Avenue and Pine Street will be completely eliminated as a result of the project.
Drivers heading to and from downtown Camden face nearly six months of road closures and the elimination of an entire section of Mount Ephraim Avenue as the massive project to upgrade Haddon Avenue continues.
Roads will be closed in three phases during the project, which costs more than $800,000, so that workers can realign the challenging intersection between Haddon Avenue, Mount Ephraim Avenue, Line Street and Pine Street.
“We are upgrading a deeply antiquated and flawed engineering design that is no longer functional in the 21st century,” said Susan Shin Angulo, the liaison between the Camden County Department of Public Works and the Freeholder Board, a legislative and executive body that is completing the project.
The first phase of construction, which begins Thursday, will completely shut down Haddon Avenue between Mount Ephraim Avenue and Pine Street for about a month. The second phase of the project will close Pine Street between Mount Ephraim and Haddon avenues for about two weeks.
The third phase will permanently eliminate Mount Ephraim Avenue between Haddon Avenue and Pine Street.
Exact timing and duration of closures is dependent on weather and other factors, Camden County officials said.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
In addition to realigning the intersection, workers will add traffic signals and additional street space to the road.
These closures are a part of a longer project to upgrade Haddon Avenue in order to improve the Medical Mile which provides access to Cooper University Hospital, the MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Coriell Institute. Previously, work on this project has been completed on Haddon Avenue between Vesper Boulevard and Old White Horse Pike.
Freeholder Board officials hope these upgrades will bring more businesses to the area.
“These improvements will not only transform the roadway to meet the needs of motorists, cyclists and pedestrians for years to come,” Shin Angulo said. “They literally pave the way for future economic development.”
The county seeks patience from drivers as they work to complete the project.
“Motorists will need patience,” Shin Angulo said. “[They] should look for alternate routes of travel during the different phases of construction.”
