History
The road was originally planned as a parkway in 1932, running from the Ben Franklin Bridge in Camden to Atlantic City, but it never materialized. The idea for a limited access road between the Philadelphia area and Atlantic City resurfaced in the 1950s when South Jersey officials, led by State Senator Frank S. Farley, pushed for an expressway between the two areas to help the economy of Southern New Jersey. The New Jersey State Highway Department authorized traffic studies for a toll road between Turnersville and Atlantic City in 1958 and 1959, and the New Jersey Expressway Authority Act in 1962 called for a five-member agency (the New Jersey Expressway Authority) with representatives from four Southern New Jersey counties to be responsible for issuing bonds to build and maintain the Atlantic City Expressway.
Construction of the Atlantic City Expressway started in the summer of 1962. The design was to feature a 300- to 400-foot-wide roadway with 12-foot-wide travel lanes and right shoulders as well as 3-foot-wide left shoulders. The portion between Route 42 in Turnersville and the Garden State Parkway in Egg Harbor Township was completed on July 31, 1964, and the portion between the Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City was finished in July 1965. Construction of the Atlantic City Expressway cost a total of $48.2 million. Tolls on the Atlantic City Expressway initially cost $0.75 at the Egg Harbor toll plaza and $0.15 at the Pleasantville toll plaza. In 1991, the South Jersey Transportation Authority was created by the New Jersey Legislature to operate the Atlantic City Expressway, the Atlantic City International Airport, and operations of the Atlantic County Transportation Authority.
In recent years, many improvements have been made to the Atlantic City Expressway. A new interchange with County Route 689 on the Gloucester Township/Winslow Township border was completed in 2000 at a cost of $5 million. The Atlantic City-Brigantine Connector was completed on July 31, 2001 to connect the Atlantic City Expressway to the Marina district and Brigantine. In 2005, the Atlantic City Expressway added a third lane in both directions between the Garden State Parkway and Atlantic City and in the eastbound direction between Route 73 and the Garden State Parkway. In addition, the Pleasantville Toll Plaza was reconstructed, replacing the older cash booths with newer technology.
On November 21, 2008, construction began on the reconstruction of Interchange 17, with completion on June 18, 2010.As a result of reconstructing this interchange, the SJTA approved raising the interchange toll to $3.00. This new rate is charged to motorists heading to or from the east along the Atlantic City Expressway at Route 50. The proposal drew opposition from area officials who felt the proposed rate was too high. The westbound exit and eastbound entrance at Interchange 17 was designed to be E-ZPass only, the first such interchange on the Atlantic City Expressway.
Read more about this topic: Atlantic City Expressway
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