State Highways of New Jersey

By 1940, a bypass of downtown Secaucus was under construction. This quickly orphaned the new road to downtown Secaucus, which remained under state maintenance until the early 1980s (and at one time bore the designation NJ 153) before being turned over to the Town of Secaucus.

Meanwhile, a spur road, NJ S-3, was legislated in the early 1930s to funnel traffic from the proposed NJ 6 (now US 46) Paterson bypass to the new Hackensack River bridge. The impetus for the spur road was the plan by the Port of New York Authority (now the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey) to build a second two-tube tunnel under the Hudson River between Weehawken and midtown Manhattan. By the time the Lincoln Tunnel opened in 1937, NJ S-3 was already being built through the meadows between NJ 2 (now NJ 17) in Rutherford and NJ 3. In addition, NJ 3 was being extended eastward to meet the tunnel. The depressed roadway through Union City was open by the time the tunnel opened; the “helix” down to the tunnel entrance opened shortly thereafter.

While the NJ 6 Paterson bypass opened in the early 1940s, it took longer to connect NJ S-3 to it. It was 1948 before the land was cleared through Rutherford for another partially depressed roadway and a crossing of the Passaic River and the proposed New Jersey Freeway in Clifton. That bridge and several grade separations in both Rutherford and Clifton opened in 1948-49, but it took until 1957 before the spur was completed. By then, the spur designation had been dropped. In the 1953 highway renumbering, the State Highway Commission scrapped plans to build the originally proposed NJ 3 through towns like Wood-Ridge and Garfield as well as north of Paterson. The highway that had been designated NJ S-3 was made a part of NJ 3, while the now-orphaned state-maintained roads in East Rutherford and Paterson received the designation NJ 20.

The New Jersey Turnpike was opened through the Secaucus meadows in 1952, prompting a reconfiguration of the approach roads to the Lincoln Tunnel. NJ 3 was rerouted onto the newly built North Bergen Viaduct beginning in 1953. However, when the tunnel approach became I-495 in 1959, NJ 3 was rerouted back to the original road leading to US 1/US 9. The current configuration of NJ 3 has been intact since 1959.

The Berrys Creek bridge, a humpback bridge that caused massive traffic jams, was replaced in stages through 1994. It is now an eight-lane crossing that better feeds the Meadowlands Sports Complex and the western alignment of the New Jersey Turnpike. The bridge itself spans two service roads and a railroad as well as the creek.

The section of NJ 3 through Rutherford was widened from four lanes to six in the early 1970s, at about the time the new junction with NJ 17 was constructed. This removed a bottleneck through Rutherford, but created one at the Passaic River bridge. That long-standing bottleneck is scheduled for remedy in the early 2010s with the replacement of the 1949-vintage Passaic River drawbridge. A new crossing of the river and adjacent NJ 21 freeway, complete with collector/distributor lanes, is scheduled to be built, with total road capacity across the river increasing from six to ten lanes in a 2-3-3-2 configuration. As of early 2014, several phases are complete. The overpass carrying Park Avenue in Rutherford has been replaced, the collector/distributor lanes in Rutherford and Clifton are in place, and the mainline bridge is under construction.

Finally, the merge with US 46 at the road’s western terminus in Clifton is due for an overhaul, which is currently slated to begin in 2014.

Mile	Street Name	Feature
10.84	Eastern terminus of , North Bergen Twp, Hudson Co
10.84		Tonnelle Ave		Tonnelle Ave
10.75		Northern Railroad	overpass	Northern Railroad
10.73		Susquehanna Railroad	overpass	Susquehanna Railroad
10.50		east	underpass	east
10.46		west	underpass	west
10.24		North Bergen Twp, Hudson Co
		Penhorn Creek	culvert	Penhorn Creek
		Secaucus Town, Hudson Co
10.04		Paterson Plank Rd	underpass	Paterson Plank Rd
9.89		Harmon Meadow Blvd	underpass	Harmon Meadow Blvd
9.75		New Jersey Turnpike	underpass	New Jersey Turnpike
9.70		Ramp from south to east	underpass	Ramp from south to east
9.12		Paterson Plank Rd	underpass	Paterson Plank Rd
8.60		Meadowlands Pkwy	bridge	Meadowlands Pkwy
8.49		Secaucus Town, Hudson Co
		Hackensack River	bridge	Hackensack River
		East Rutherford Boro, Bergen Co
8.14		New Jersey Turnpike	underpass	New Jersey Turnpike
8.08			underpass	Ramp from east to north
8.05		Ramp from east to Sports Complex	underpass
8.03			merge
7.96			underpass
7.60		Ramp from to west	underpass	Ramp from to west
7.58		Ramp to	underpass	Ramp to
6.96		Service road	bridge	Service road
6.92		Berrys Creek	bridge	Berrys Creek
6.86		East Rutherford Boro, Bergen Co
		Erie Railroad	bridge	Erie Railroad
		Rutherford Boro, Bergen Co
6.82		Service road	bridge	Service road
6.39		north	underpass	north
6.36		south	underpass	south
5.93		Orient Way	underpass	Orient Way
5.67		Ridge Rd	underpass	Ridge Rd
5.16		Park Ave	underpass	Park Ave
5.01		Riverside Ave	bridge	Riverside Ave
4.95		Rutherford Boro, Bergen Co
		Passaic River	bridge	Passaic River
		Clifton City, Passaic Co
4.89		New Jersey Freeway	bridge	New Jersey Freeway
4.70		Ramp between east and	overpass	Ramp between east and
4.64		Lackawanna Railroad	overpass	Lackawanna Railroad
4.42		River Dr	overpass	River Dr
4.39		Yantacaw Pond	bridge	Yantacaw Pond
3.91		Third River	bridge	Third River
3.82		Main Ave	overpass	Main Ave
3.42		Passaic Ave	overpass	Passaic Ave
2.84		Erie Railroad	overpass	Erie Railroad
2.64		Bloomfield Ave	overpass	Bloomfield Ave
1.78		Hepburn Rd	underpass	Hepburn Rd
1.53		Garden State Pkwy north	underpass	Garden State Pkwy north
1.44		Garden State Pkwy south	overpass	Garden State Pkwy south
1.26		Broad St	overpass	Broad St
0.51		Grove St	underpass	Grove St
0.13			underpass
0.10			underpass	Ramp from to
0.00			merge
0.00	Western terminus of , Clifton City, Passaic Co
	Road continues westward as