New Jersey Route 45 - History

History

What is now Route 45 was originally designated as a segment of pre-1927 Route 6 in 1917. This route was to head south from Camden and follow Route 45 to Mullica Hill, where it split into two branches, with one going to Salem on current Route 45 and another going to Bridgeton on current Route 77. In the 1927 New Jersey state highway renumbering, pre-1927 Route 6 between Camden and Salem became Route 45. A bypass around Camden was created as the southern half of Crescent Boulevard, a part of U.S. Route 130, and Route 45 was rerouted to use the bypass up to the Airport Circle in Pennsauken Township. In the 1953 New Jersey state highway renumbering, the northern terminus of Route 45 was cut back to its current location in Westville to avoid the concurrency with U.S. Route 130.

In the late 1960s, the Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) proposed construction of a 10-mile (16 km) long, $20 million freeway along the Route 45 corridor in Gloucester County which would have extended from Exit 24 of Interstate 295 in Woodbury to a planned U.S. Route 322 freeway in Mullica Hill. The New Jersey Department of Transportation never followed through on this proposal, instead proposing a widening project to create a four-lane divided highway for the full length of Route 45 from Woodbury to Salem, of which only a small portion was ever completed by the 1980s, running from the border of Woodbury to the border of Mantua Township. In 2012, the Mullica Hill Bypass was completed, and US 322 was removed from its concurrency with Route 45.