Circles targeted for badly needed change If you want to drive south on Truck Routes 1 & 9 in Jersey City south of the Pulaski Skyway, you face the awful challenge of negotiating the Charlotte Circle, where you have to find a break in high-speed traffic driving into Jersey City from West Hudson.
That location would be a risky relic of traffic direction almost anywhere in the state, but seems particularly perilous and out of place where it is - in the nexus of high-volume roadways that feature a good deal of intra-state car and truck traffic as well as a lot of interstate traffic bound for or coming from Manhattan.
The need for change at this location, to make traffic flow more safely, is something we have called for previously. We were glad to see the news that the North Jersey Transportation Authority, an agency which reviews capital funding for the state Department of Transportation, on Monday gave its approval to a project eliminating that circle, adding two signalized intersections, two left-turn lanes for continuing on Routes 1 & 9 south-bound and a direct connection for Route 7 traffic coming from West Hudson to Routes 1 & 9 northbound. That work, along with improvements to the nearby Tonnelle Circle in Jersey City, would be part of $10.53 million project.
Hudson County Executive Robert Janiszewski, chairman of the NJTPA, saw these and other investments approved by the NJTPA as representing a giant step toward improving the neighborhoods and daily life of Hudson. Making significant changes at the two awful traffic circles would deserve such praise.
There may be some inconveniences to motorists while some of the work is done, but we urge the state DOT to carefully but expeditiously accomplish these highly significant traffic improvements.