Route 22 to be One Lane Near Mountain Avenue

Short term improvements on Route 22 will continue Friday, as the highway goes down to one lane in a section of Bridgewater for about 50 days.

According to a release from the Bridgewater Township Police Department, Route 22 East will be reduced to one lane between the New Jersey State Police Barracks and the Mountain Avenue entrance. This is expected to last for about 50 days.

Green Construction Inc. is closing the right travel lane to through traffic. For an approximately 0.3-mile stretch, the section of the road will go from two lanes to one until mid June, unless the work is finished earlier.

The work is part of the New Jersey Department of Transportation’s short term improvements, and will include drainage, curbing and resurfacing of the eastbound lanes.

Police said there will be both nighttime and daytime work done, so the lane closures will be maintained 24 hours a day until the project is complete.

Outside of this, the NJDOT will maintain all available travel lanes between 6 a.m. and 9 p.m. during the week.

This is part of the first project in the short term improvements on Route 22 that was started in February, which began with overnight lane closures while construction began.

This period of about seven weeks when only one lane is open was planned when the project was announced.

This first part of the improvements is scheduled to be completed in early summer 2014.

The purpose of the work is to provide congestion relief and improve safety between the Route 202/206 and I-287 interchanges on Route 22, where about 105,000 vehicles travel per day.

The short term improvements are scheduled to cost about $7.9 million.

Improvements include:

• A new Route 22 East auxiliary lane for the Route 202/206 on-ramp
• A new Route 22 East auxiliary lane from North Bridge Street past Grove Street
• A new deceleration lane on Route 22 West for an I-287 southbound ramp.

There are also plans for design and technological upgrades along the corridor, namely:

• Eliminating median u-turns at North Gaston Avenue and Adamsville Road
• Reconfiguring the intersection of the North Grove Street overpass and Grove Street
• Reconfiguring the Mountain Avenue intersection
• Installing a new traffic signal at the intersection of Foothill and Ronson roads, with the addition of a dedicated left turn lane
• Installing New Intelligent Transportation Systems facilities with three CCTV cameras and five permanent Dynamic Message Signs
• Improving the roadway drainage system and a new stormwater management basin
• Improving highway lighting