NJ promised these roads decades ago — here’s why you’re still stuck in traffic

I love learning something new that's actually old about the Great Garden State. History about our state — and particularly my hometown region of South Jersey — has always interested me. And to this day I still like looking at maps. Whether it's an old paper map or Google Maps on my phone, I enjoy hunting for those off-the-beaten-path places.

When you combine all those interests with a good Google search, you learn new things about old events. Like plans to build roads, highways, and infrastructure that never materialized.

New Jersey loves a big infrastructure promise. The ribbon-cutting speeches, the renderings, the bold projections about what this new road is going to do for commuters, for the economy, for your summer Shore trip. And then, sometimes, nothing. The money dries up. The politics shift. The environmental groups show up. And the road — the one you were counting on — just quietly disappears from the map.

Here are the biggest highway promises this state made and never kept.

The Somerset Freeway — the gap that broke I-95 for 35 years

The Somerset Freeway would have connected I-95 in Ewing  northeast through Central Jersey to I-287 in Piscataway, filling in the missing piece of the most important highway on the East Coast. It never happened. Residents in Hopewell Township, Princeton, and Montgomery Township opposed it, fearing unwanted development. The New Jersey Turnpike Authority opposed it too — because a free highway would have eaten into their toll revenue. Governor Brendan Byrne killed it in 1980. Congress made it official in 1982. The result? A gap existed on I-95 within New Jersey for roughly 35 years, with northbound I-95 ending at US 1 in Lawrence Township and becoming I-295. Drivers pieced together a route through I-295 and I-195 for decades. The gap wasn't finally closed until 2018 — through Pennsylvania.

READ MORE:  Route 55 extension: Why South Jersey is still stuck in traffic 

South Jersey's unfinished roads: Route 55, Route 60, and the Shore that stayed out of reach

If you've ever driven down to the Shore from the Delaware Valley, you know this one personally. Route 55 was originally conceived as the Cape May Expressway, meant to run all the way from Route 42 in Gloucester County down to the Garden State Parkway in Middle Township. The extension was halted in 1975 due to rising construction costs and significant environmental obstacles. Today the route ends where it joins Route 47 in Maurice River Township — more than 8 miles from the county line and about 20 miles short of where it was always supposed to go. Four lanes of highway narrow to a single lane before merging with Route 47, a local road never designed for the volume of tourist and commuter traffic it's now forced to absorb every summer. Between 2003 and 2015 alone, there were 23 fatalities along a 23-mile stretch of Route 47 below the Route 55 terminus. More recently there were 3 fatalities in 2025 alone. As of now, no formal proposal exists to extend Route 55. There are no environmental studies underway and no funding allocated — though with a new administration in Trenton, state officials have acknowledged that previous decisions may be reexamined.

Route 60 was another South Jersey dream that never got off the drawing board. Planned to run all the way from the Delaware Memorial Bridge area to the Jersey Shore, cutting across Cumberland and Atlantic counties, it would have been a game-changer — a direct shot from the Delaware Valley to the Shore without depending on the Parkway or the congested Route 47 corridor. It never got built. South Jersey has been living with the consequences in summer traffic ever since.

The road that cut Trenton off from its own river

This one is a little different. It's not a road that was never built — it's a road that was built wrong and has been causing damage ever since. Route 29 is a four-lane highway that runs along the Delaware River in Trenton, essentially walling the city off from one of its greatest natural assets. Calls to fix or remove it date back decades. Every few years momentum builds. Every few years something stops it. Trenton is still waiting.

Why some roads were better left unbuilt

There's a pattern here that's hard to ignore. In New Jersey, highways get proposed when the politics are right, then stall when the money gets tight or the opposition gets loud. Sometimes it's environmental groups. And while some of these roads would have added real convenience, I do think the 1979 New Jersey Pinelands Protection Act did far more good than harm. I just can't imagine four-lane highways cutting through that very special place. Sometimes it's the Turnpike Authority protecting its toll revenue. Sometimes it's just the grinding reality that building anything in this state is complicated, expensive, and slow.

The people who pay the price are the ones sitting on Route 47 in August, watching the clock, wondering why the road they were promised in 1965 still isn't there.