We the undersigned oppose the proposed widening of the New Jersey Turnpike from Mount Laurel to the Delaware Memorial Bridge. The whole project would spend an estimated $2 billion to add two lanes to this stretch (one in each direction). Construction is set to begin in 2025, but the final design phase and environmental permitting are already underway.

With a similar big highway project, the Direct Connection, nearing completion in our area, it’s time to rethink our destructive development patterns.

We express solidarity with the people of North Jersey opposing another proposed Turnpike widening near the Holland Tunnel, and support their petition.

Both projects should be canceled. Money and labor should be redirected to public transit, transit-oriented development, bicycle infrastructure, and road safety improvements. These alternatives will provide many times more transport capacity, more efficiently, with less pollution, and with smarter land use.

We encourage all New Jerseyans to sign this petition because we’re all in this together. We breathe the same air, pay taxes and tolls to the same state, (sadly) compete for the same housing, and stare down the same ocean threatening to swallow our shores and homes.

Widening the Turnpike won’t persistently reduce traffic congestion due a well-known phenomenon called induced demand. Any initial relief disappears in little time, as research shows again and again. Even the NJ Department of Transportation admits it here (emphasis added):

“For decades, the usual approach to traffic congestion was to add lanes and build roads. However, the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) has found that additional lanes don't always solve the congestion problem. Additional lanes sometimes make it attractive to build new homes and businesses, but this development attracts new people and the lanes again become crowded and need to be widened.

[…]

The trips that were once walkable or bikeable, now add millions of cars to our roads every year.”

When people see less traffic, they drive more. Businesses shift from moving goods via freight trains to trucks that destroy our roads and pollute our air much more than cars. Longer term, people and businesses move to more outlying areas where driving is necessary to do anything. This puts market pressure on open space and farmland for wasteful development of sprawling truck-served warehouses, “big box” stores, parking lots, and even more roads. As those areas become congested, the cycle repeats. Even expanding road capacity faster than population growth increases congestion.

Driving itself imposes costs on everyone: Worse air quality, greenhouse gas emissions, traffic congestion, traffic accidents involving non-drivers, and a more volatile economy vulnerable to swings in global oil markets. Moreover, by prioritizing a car-based lifestyle, our state and local governments encourage environmentally destructive and financially unsustainable land use.

Electric vehicles aren’t a silver bullet. Relying on them does nothing to address the poor land use, open space loss, unsafe roads, and congestion we get when we design society around cars. Passenger and freight rail are easier and cheaper to electrify than personal vehicles and commercial trucks.

As economist Matt Turner said, “adding lanes is a fine solution if the goal is to get more cars on the road.” New Jersey should have greater goals in mind. We need clean air, convenient public transit, walkable towns, protected open space, renewable energy, less time wasted in traffic, and a liveable planet for our children. The proposed Turnpike projects act against these goals, as well as the State’s alleged climate goals.

We should expand alternatives to driving and discourage car-based development. Public transit and bicycle infrastructure have been shown to reduce traffic congestion and improve air quality. Specifically:

• Consider all public transit projects proposed by the Effective Transit Alliance as lower-cost, higher-return alternatives to highway expansion.

• Modernize NJ Transit’s trains and plug its impending budget gap of nearly $1 billion.

• Fund, electrify, and expedite the Glassboro-Camden Light Rail Line. Total cost estimates range from $1.6 to $1.8 billion, less than the Turnpike widening proposed nearby.

• Extend the Hudson-Bergen Light Rail into Bergen County. The cost estimate is $2 billion, a fraction of the proposed $10.7 billion Turnpike widening nearby.

• Build more rail and Bus Rapid Transit lines across the state.

• Encourage development of denser housing and commercial property in traditional downtowns and near rail stations instead of in open space and exurbs.

• Aggressively expand open space protected by the DEP and adopt sound forestry practices.

• Build road safety and traffic calming improvements such as roundabouts (replacing traffic lights), raised intersections, continuous sidewalks, narrower car lanes, and protected bike lanes.

• Build warehouses along freight rail lines instead of on state and county roads.

Updates

• April 12, 2023: We got covered on NJ.com: "Don’t widen the N.J. Turnpike in South Jersey, opponents say in petition challenging 37-mile project"

• August 14, 2023: Earlier this year, the Effective Transit Alliance released a report proposing a slew of public transit projects instead of highway expansion. We call for these projects.