New Jersey Route 55

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Route 55

Cape May Expressway

Length:

40.54 mi^[1] (65.24 km)

Formed:

1967

South end:

NJ 47 in Port Elizabeth

Major
junctions:

NJ 49 in Millville

NJ 47 in South Vineland

NJ 56 in Vineland

US 40 in Malaga

US 322 in Glassboro

North end:

NJ 42 in Deptford

New Jersey State Highway Routes
< NJ 54		NJ 56 >

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Route 55

Route 55 is a state highway in New Jersey, United States, built to freeway standards. It runs from an intersection with Route 47 (Delsea Drive) in Port Elizabeth north to an interchange with Route 42 in Deptford Township. The highway sees routine traffic tie ups every morning a mile or more before its end, where all traffic merges onto northbound Route 42. The highway has a very wide median for most of its length with natural untouched vegetation.

1 History
2 Future developments
3 References
4 External links

[edit] History

Route 55 south at the southern of two crossings of Route 47

The highway was planned in the late 1960s along with several never-built southern New Jersey freeways, including Route 60. Titled the Cape May Expressway, it was first proposed as a toll highway very similar in respects to the Atlantic City Expressway. Eventually those plans fell through, and the New Jersey Department of Transportation (NJDOT) began studies for a state freeway instead. The freeway was built in sections from 1967 all the way up to the 1990s. For a time, Route 55 was merely a bypass of Millville and Vineland before it was connected to Route 42; the whole route runs parallel to Route 47. Original plans would have continued Route 55 to the Garden State Parkway near exit 13 in the vicinity of Sea Isle City. Construction of this section of the highway has been stalled because of the protected wetlands along the route. The lower few exits of the freeway have nonstandard signage that is irregularly small for a typical 65mph freeway. Route 55 is the longest continuous state route freeway in New Jersey at 40.5 miles long, with Route 18 following in a close second at 25.5 miles long.

The freeway has been instrumental in bringing economic development to southern New Jersey, Vineland in particular. The most common use of the highway is a commuting route from Vineland, Glassboro, and Deptford Township north to the cities of Camden and Philadelphia. Despite the fact that the southern extension has been held up for decades, it may be revisited due to the disturbing images of Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita in the Gulf states. The Cape May Peninsula and surrounding area does not have a proper evacuation route and Route 55 may get built to accommodate that.^[2]

The freeway like many other interstates in New Jersey once had solar powered emergency call boxes every 1.0 mile, however with the advent of cell phones the usage of these call boxes became extremely limited. So to save on maintenance costs the NJDOT removed these call boxes in 2005, and with difficulty replacing parts, they are disappearing from many other freeways such as I-195, I-280, I-295, I-78, I-80, NJ 208.^[3]^[4]

[edit] Future developments

The freeway will be milled and repaved from milemarker 61.00-51.00 in both directions and is slated for completion in 2007.^[5]
The freeway will be milled and repaved from milemarker 40.00-34.00 in both directions and is slated for completion in 2007.^[5]
The interchange with Route 49 (Exit 23) will be reconstructed and improved to relieve congestion.^[5]
Though the NJDOT is not officially planning the extension of Route 55 yet, there are still efforts and studies being done to finish the remaining 20 miles of missing freeway. It would likely be years if not a decade or more before anything happens.^[6]^[7]^[8]