Briefly SB along the (relatively) newly opened NJ 18 waterfront freeway, then exiting at Commercial St. and looking back at the interchange still under construction, in June 2008. As you can see, the NB side has not been constructed, and in fact was not even open three months later when I returned. Instead, NB traffic uses the Commercial Ave. off- and on-ramps... or perhaps a temporary offramp that will turn into a linked frontage road from the NJ 172 interchange. A speed limit hasn't been decided on (which is a lie, but why wouldn't the contractor know which digits to put on?), but at least here the directional banners properly sit atop the shields. I like to think my website had a hand in fixing the ones in Piscataway on new 18. Finally, this stretch of NJ 18 will have sidewalks, in NJDOT's ever-wise mentality of pedestrian friendliness on roads that never have pedestrians.


An unusual perspective, looking back southeast at the NB C-D road, which I'm on, through the clear sound wall that divides the highway from Boyd Park.

All remaining photos were taken 9/14/08 as part of the New Brunswick mini-meet (linked at bottom).


Northbound past the NJ 172 interchange under construction. The SB onramp is basically ready, but the corresponding NB offramp needs a lot of work. The pavement behind the to-be-demolished curb ends about halfway up (before the heavy machinery), and apparently there will be large useless concrete embankments on either side of the ramp. Please tell me I'm wrong. Based on what I can see here, both 172 and Commerical St. traffic would exit here, and the connection that takes 18 NB traffic around instead of under the Commercial overpass (as seen atop this page) would be closed. Some of the nice points are the high retaining walls on the left sculpted as if they were actual rock and the stone arches on the right that offer river views. You can see a lot more on the NJ 172 page, linked at bottom.


In the middle of the next run of photos, looking back at the frontage road that will come down from NJ 172, for now just a hill of dirt.


Continuing NB, as I described above the lanes exit at Commercial Ave. and come back down for now. It's okay to take the mainline NJ 18 lanes through the traffic signal for the time being because the existing condition was already a traffic signal before the reconstruction, so it's not making things any worse. The next overpass is for New Rd., and with the exit so close to the big merge from NJ 172/Commercial Ave., I bet that New Rd. traffic will ALSO be signed off of that exit - or else NJDOT will have to leave the frontage road connection before Commercial to give people two chances to exit. If it seems like traffic should be able to get back into the full travel width before NJ 27, it probably could, but first it will have to be taken onto that side with just two lanes so that the current roadway can be brought up to finished grade. It's sound construction policy not to open up capacity in the middle of the project that a later stage will just take away again, so a new roadway will often sit unused like this to tempt people.

North to new NJ 18
NJ 172 and interchange construction
Onto NJ 18 NB
Onto NJ 18 SB
Along NJ 18 (non-directional)
Back to NJ 18 main page

The New Brunswick Mini-Meet
Onto NJ 27
Back to NJ Roads
Back to Roads