Garden State Parkway - History

History

Route S101 was a northern extension of Route 101 planned from Hackensack through Paramus to the New York state line near Montvale. The section from Hackensack to Paramus was never built; the section from Paramus to the state line would become part of the Garden State Parkway.

The Parkway was originally designated as the Route 4 Parkway when it was started in 1947 in Union County, but, due to lack of funds, only 11 miles (18 km) were completed by 1950. The solution was for the state to establish the New Jersey Highway Authority in 1952 to oversee construction and operation as a self-liquidating toll road. Much of the original section, between exits 129 and 140, was long administered by the New Jersey Department of Transportation, and has always been untolled. The segment can be distinguished by the stone facing on the overpasses.

The Parkway was constructed between 1946 and 1957 to connect suburban northern New Jersey with resort areas along the Atlantic coast and to alleviate traffic on traditional north–south routes running through each town center, such as US 1, US 9, and Route 35. Unofficially, it has two sections: the "metropolitan section" north of the Raritan River and the "shore section" between the Raritan River and Cape May. Only 18 miles (29 km) had been constructed by 1950, but taking a cue from the successful New York State Thruway, on April 14, 1952, the New Jersey Legislature created the New Jersey Highway Authority, empowered to construct, operate, and maintain a self-sufficient toll parkway from Paramus to Cape May.

The landscape architect and engineer in charge of the newly named "Garden State Parkway" was Gilmore David Clarke, of the architectural firm of Parsons, Brinkerhof, Hall and MacDonald, who had worked with Robert Moses on the parkway systems around New York City. Clarke's design prototypes for the Parkway combined the example of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, a model of efficiency with parallels in the German Autobahn routes of the 1930s, with the Merritt Parkway model that stressed a planted "green belt" for beauty. Both design models featured wide planted medians to prevent head-on collisions and mask the glare of on-coming headlights. The Garden State Parkway was designed to have a natural feel. Many trees were planted, and the only signs were those for exits—there were no distracting billboards. Most of the signs were constructed from wood, or a dark-brown metal, instead of the chrome bars used on most other highways. The guardrails were also made from wood and dark metal. Most early overpasses were stone, but then changed to concrete, with green rails and retro etchings, popular around the 1950s and 1960s. These are now in decay and being replaced by sleek, new bridges. The Parkway was designed to curve gently throughout its length so that drivers would remain alert and not fall asleep at the wheel.

Most of the metropolitan section is like any other expressway built in the 1950s through heavily populated areas. The shore section parallels U.S. Route 9 and runs through unspoiled wilderness in the New Jersey Pine Barrens. In Cape May County, the Parkway has three traffic lights (at exits 8, 10, and 11 respectively), but these will be eliminated in the future, with construction of an overpass at exit 10 in Cape May Court House and Stone Harbor scheduled to begin in September 2012.

The Parkway had an old alignment before the Great Egg Harbor Bridge was completed. It was detoured onto U.S. Route 9 and over the Beesley's Point Bridge. This old alignment still exists today and is slowly being consumed by nature.

The Garden State Parkway was off-limits to motorcycles until Malcolm Forbes pushed successfully for legislation to allow them.

On July 9, 2003, Governor of New Jersey Jim McGreevey's plan to merge the operating organizations of the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike into one agency was completed.

Literature from the time of the Parkway's construction indicates that the Parkway would become toll-free once bonds used for its construction were paid off. However, additional construction projects, plus the expectation that the Parkway will pay for its own maintenance and policing (and the massive E-ZPass project) make it unlikely it will become toll-free in the foreseeable future.

The Parkway was also planned to be the southern terminus for NJ 55 at milemarker 19. This was cancelled after the conclusion that the highway ran through too many wetland areas. The idea is still being revisited after frequent traffic jams on NJ 47.