New Jersey Roads - NJ 184/CR 501



NJ 184 is pretty much completely concurrent with CR 501; they only separate at the eastern end of NJ 184, which follows NJ 440's frontage roads (Pfeiffer Boulevard, the original Outerbridge Crossing approach but now in much different form) to/from NJ 35. Originally, before the NJ 440 freeway, 184 was just 440, and this was before the CR 5xx system was adopted, so there were no problems. It would make much more sense for New Jersey to whip up one of its vacant even-numbered 500 routes, like 570, and avoid the useless multiplexes with NJ 184, NJ 440, NY 440, and NJ 440 again just to get back to the actual north-south 501. 184 as it stands is a semi-important local highway, but all of the traffic uses 440, which rarely generates delays serious enough to require reroutes, unlike the Hudson River crossing approaches.


Only in the Tangle will you find the Turnpike and Parkway on the same sign (see US 9 for more in the area). This (2 views, 1 sign) is on WB NJ 184/CR 501, and joins the ramp from US 9 NB that, as you can see, will not let you onto the Parkway SB. Presumably there is some other way on somewhere, though signage doesn't help you much in that effort. Perhaps the only actual way is to take US 9 NB and U-turn. Anyway, this is the last turn from 184 WB, as it ends on the other side of the overpass and will just be CR 501.


At the same intersection, which is opposite the Garden State Parkway headquarters (now part of the Turnpike Authority); the Headquarters lies between the US 9 SB ramp to NJ 184/CR 501 EB and the 501/184 EB ramp to the Parkway NB/Turnpike. King Georges Post Road was slightly bent by the Garden State Parkway, but 501/184 don't turn here to keep following it.


The first sign directs you to NJ 440 NB's frontage road at the 440 NB offramp to NJ 184. Making a left instead takes you to the second sign, which is just before the NJ 35 overpass; this is how CR 501 merges with NJ 440 just before crossing into New York. Amboy Avenue is nothing special, while the frontage roads, the continuation of what was NJ 184, are Pfeiffer Boulevard. Pfeiffer was once a surface arterial, NJ 440, and thus the former approach to the Outerbridge, meeting NJ 35 at a circle in the pre-freeway days before launching onto the bridge. Now, Pfeiffer Blvd. curls around at its eastern end, underneath the bridge, to the surface below.


The 1956 Middlesex County map from the NJ State Highway Dept. Bureau of Planning and Traffic shows the old path of NJ 440 that NJ 184 now follows. It's missing the southeast quadrant ramps at US 9 and has a traffic circle at NJ 35. That would work for 184, but imagine all of NJ 440 going through that.

Onto CR 501 alone

Onto the Garden State Parkway
Onto the NJ Turnpike, I-95
Onto NJ 440
To NJ 35
Back to New Jersey Roads
Back to Roads