Visiting the Jersey Shore is one of the most beloved pastimes for many families in the Philly region. Yet getting there via the Atlantic City Expressway amid summertime traffic is often the worst part of the trip.
“Man, I’m dealing with enough traffic already,” Jake Pinelli, who often drives down the AC Expressway, told NBC10. “I can’t sit in it any longer.”
Now officials are planning to widen the AC Expressway to three lanes from mile marker 31 westbound to the end of Route 42 in Gloucester Township. Currently, only the eastern half of the Expressway has three lanes.
The plan also includes new bridges and a full reconstruction of the area where the Expressway and Route 42 meet.
Get top local stories in Philly delivered to you every morning. Sign up for NBC Philadelphia's News Headlines newsletter.
“We all knew we were going to get a third lane. It was a matter of when we were going to get it,” New Jersey Congressman Donald Norcross (District 1) said.
Norcross, along with New Jersey Department of Transportation Commissioner Diane Gutierrez-Scaccetti and South Jersey Transportation Authority executive director Stephen F. Dougherty, held a press conference Wednesday highlighting the positive transportation and economic impacts of widening the expressway.
“The South Jersey Transportation Authority’s widening project will truly enhance the patron experience along the Expressway,” Dougherty said. “Once the 26 miles of east and westbound lanes are completed, the roadway will finally be expanded to three lanes its entire length,”
Transportation and Transit
Officials said the project will create an estimated 2300 jobs in the region, reduce congestion and improve safety along a stretch of Route 322, one of New Jersey’s deadliest highways.
Officials also released an early design of the planned improvements.
The planned construction is expected to begin in 2024 and could take more than a year before its completion in 2025. The construction will be adjusted during peak summer travel times, according to transportation officials.
Officials also said funding for the project has already been allocated in part through a toll hike from 2020. No further toll increases are planned to pay for the project.
“There’s no question that those additional, the billions of dollars coming under the Infrastructure Act, is helpful not only to this project but all the other ones announced and those being done,” Norcross said.
Pinelli told NBC10 he was concerned about the long term impact of the project however.
“The improvements are going to help but over time I feel that you’re just going to see more and more of that traffic build back up again,” he said.
