Signage for the future “Herbertsville” exit on the Garden State Parkway, covered up. (Photo: Daniel Nee)
Garden State Parkway interchange 91 will be labeled the “Herbertsville” exit on roadway signage, a nod to the common name of Brick’s northernmost neighborhood.
Signage for the future exit has been installed on signposts above the highway, though they will remain covered in black material until the improved interchange opens. Current plans call for the entrance and exit lanes of the roadway to be completed in July 2016, though utility work will continue until February 2017. There has not been an exact date set for each of the new lanes of the interchange to open to traffic.
The project, nine years in the making, will include numerous new entrance and exit ramps. Changes include:
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- A new northbound entrance ramp from Burnt Tavern Road and Lanes Mill Road, with access to the park-and-ride lot on the east side of the Parkway.
- A second northbound entrance ramp for vehicles traveling eastbound on Burnt Tavern Road. This ramp will allow access from Burrsville Road. The single existing northbound ramp will be eliminated.
- New northbound exit and entrance ramps linking the Parkway and Burrsville Road.
- A new southbound entrance ramp for traffic heading west on Burnt Tavern Road.
- A second southbound entrance ramp linking Lanes Mill Road with the Parkway. Herborn Avenue will be extended south and east to Lanes Mill Road, where it will meet the new entrance ramp and a signaled intersection.
Interchange 91 Realignment (Source: Ocean County Engineering Department)
Download the full engineering plan/map for the interchange 91 project here.
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Ocean County, which is in charge of the project, awarded a $21,319,770 contract for the project in early 2015.
The goal of the project is to allow access to the Parkway from all local roads, regardless of the direction motorists want to go. As it currently stands, motorists can only enter the northbound Parkway and exit the southbound Parkway at the interchange. The improvements will add seven new traffic lights, but relieve traffic because the lights will be timed to optimize traffic flow and cars accessing the Parkway will be able to exit the local roadways at convenient locations rather than sit through multiple light cycles trying to jockey for position in jug handles and at busy intersections, county officials have said.
In most cases, said Ocean County Engineer Frank Scarantino, a driver who would have sat through five light cycles will now only sit through one.
