NEWARK, N.J. — New Jersey commuters faced a tangle of delays Thursday morning, with crashes, full road closures and heavy bridge traffic slowing travel across multiple key routes.
A crash was reported on the New Jersey Turnpike’s northbound exit ramp at Interchange 9 (NJ 18) in East Brunswick Township at 8:22 a.m. While all lanes and shoulders remain open, the ramp is partially blocked, officials said.
Elsewhere, a crash on I-195 eastbound just east of Exit 3 (Hamilton Square-Yardville Road) in Hamilton Township closed the left shoulder as of 8:17 a.m., further disrupting morning traffic flow.
In Old Bridge Township, a downed utility pole shut down all southbound lanes of U.S. Route 9 south of County Route 673/Ernston Road since early morning. There was no immediate estimate on when the road would reopen.
Further north, a water main break on NJ Route 27 in Rahway led to a full closure of northbound lanes south of County Route 613/Westfield Avenue/West Grand Avenue. The closure was first reported at 8:09 p.m. Wednesday and remained in effect Thursday morning.
Key points
- Crash on Turnpike exit ramp in East Brunswick causing partial blockage
- Downed pole closes all southbound lanes of US 9 in Old Bridge
- Major water main break still shuts down NJ 27 northbound in Rahway
Bridge and tunnel traffic worsens amid volume spikes
Delays continued to mount on several Hudson River crossings. On the George Washington Bridge, eastbound delays spanned both levels, with the lower level showing a 35-minute backup and the upper level reaching 50 minutes from I-95 at I-80 to the Alexander Hamilton Bridge as of 8:19 a.m.
The Lincoln Tunnel also saw extended delays of 30 minutes in both the center and south tunnels from the New Jersey Turnpike at Exit 16E into Manhattan.
On the Garden State Parkway, volume was the culprit behind multiple slowdowns. Northbound delays stretched from north of Exit 142 (I-78) to south of Exit 144 (CR 510) in Irvington Township, a 2-mile backup. Southbound traffic was also moving slowly between Exits 149 and 148 in Bloomfield and at Exit 130B-A (US 1) in Woodbridge.
Port Street eastbound traffic near the New Jersey Marine Terminal in Newark was delayed as well, though all lanes remained open.