New Jersey Roads - I-95/NJ Turnpike (PA Extension)
I-95 and NJ Turnpike Pennsylvania Extension
New Jersey jumped the gun a little bit here. Until 2018, there was a free I-95 around Trenton, which was the northern continuation of the Interstate from Florida. The mainline of the Turnpike from Trenton north is the southern continuation of the Interstate from Maine. The twain didn't meet, on which I've gone into great detail many times on my website. Suffice to say, once the Somerset Freeway and its brief successor paralleling US 1 were cancelled, I-95 was extended down the Turnpike to Exit 6, and then NJ figured, what the heck, let's replace 700P as well. That strategy finally paid off more than 30 years later because once the I-276/PA I-95 interchange was completed (originally planned for 2012, but construction hadn't even started by then), New Jersey can now actually sign the highway featured on this page with the number it already has. It also meant the end of discontiguous I-95, with the Trenton section becoming an extension of I-295.
These EB gantries at the end of the Extension are original to the Turnpike's opening, and as you can see, the signs are backlit at night. It's interesting that Camden is chosen as a control city, because the Turnpike doesn't directly serve Camden - Delaware would be a better complement to New York.
This skimpy shield points down what is officially Exit 6A but is only shown as Exit on all signs. Exit 6A used to be an eastbound offramp for US 130 from Pennsylvania, but the interchange was rebuilt to allow access to and from both directions of the Extension. Traffic to and from the east stops at the Exit 6 tollbooth (booths, not ramps, have the numbers), and traffic heading into PA pays double so that eastbound traffic out of PA can use the exit for free. It actually pays better, even for Florence residents who get an Exit 6A discount, to use Exit 7 (US 206) to head into PA, and obviously it pays trucks from PA to exit onto 130 if they're local. I guess the ramps have such little traffic that the additional tollbooth would not have paid for itself.
Crossing impressively into Pennsylvania. The first photo gives you an idea of how the third lane each way was once carried onto the bridge without a shoulder.
And coming back from PA - click to watch the video.
