It’s a dilemma that drivers face each morning when trying to make their way around Holland Tunnel or the Jersey City/Hoboken border: Do you take the smooth roads of the Turnpike but get stuck in traffic, or navigate the thoroughfares around downtown Jersey City?
According to Port Authority statistics from 2003, 33.13 million cars went through the Holland Tunnel that year. That puts approximately 90,772 cars on those roads per day, not to mention the thousands driving between Jersey City and Hoboken.
A number of streets in the vicinity have proven hazardous to drivers due to the many potholes, bumps and cracks that for years have contributed to the city’s reputation as one that is besieged by bad roads.
Residents complain and the City’s Public Works Department responds by paving the offending roads, only to have the thoroughfares revert to their former condition. But are the problems the fault of the city, or are others responsible for the roads in question?
Why has the problem persisted, and what are the future plans to mend these roads?Streets paved with holes
The roads running between Hoboken’s southern border and Jersey City are: Monmouth Street, Erie Street, Jersey Avenue, Marin Boulevard, Washington Street/Washington Boulevard, Coles Street, and Grove Street.
Several of these roads cut directly through 12th and 14th streets, which run to and from the Holland Tunnel, thus making them the streets of choice for those who want to avoid traffic on the New Jersey Turnpike or Highway 1/9 leading into the tunnel. Other roads lead into the tunnel in a roundabout way, as is the case of Washington Boulevard, which encircles the tunnel allowing drivers the option of making a left turn at the intersection of Washington and Marin boulevards, Grove Street, or Jersey Avenue.
However, these roads, while providing shortcuts, also cut through residential areas. The constant heavy traffic has pounded streets that were not built for this volume of vehicles.
Let’s be a rush hour traveler and start with Monmouth Street, which starts from Grand Street in downtown Jersey City.
For the first two blocks, the road surface is relatively smooth until a driver passes Newark Avenue. That’s when the car runs into a strip of cracks, raised patches, and potholes that make for nervous navigating. It keeps up for nine blocks until Monmouth Street turns into 13th Street, past facilities owned by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey and the United Water Company.
Then, the trip continues onto the two-way section of Coles Street, where drivers are confronted with another stretch of pockmarked road as they ride under an old railroad overpass, past old warehouses. Continuing down Coles Street means subjecting a vehicle to the worst series of bumps and dips that puts shocks in shock absorbers.
Drivers often opt to turn onto 16th Street to reach Jersey Avenue, which has a somewhat smoother surface, if they want to make their way to the tunnel or to Hoboken. Driven to comment
Robin Pinkowitz, an aide to City Councilman E. Junior Maldonado and, until recently, a resident of 10th Street (located only a few blocks from the Holland Tunnel) for nearly 10 years, said that the cars passing her house were intolerable.
“The vehicles constantly running past my house, especially the trucks when they would hit the bumps and potholes, shook up my house and a number of houses in the area,” she said. “The constant vibration causes damage to the infrastructure of people’s homes. And they are ruining roads that are already in bad shape.”
Karen Kelly, an employee for over 10 years at Statco, Inc., a storage warehouse located on the corner of 16th and Coles streets, said that she has gotten used to the bumps.
“I come from Bayonne every day, and after some time it hasn’t been a problem because I know where the bumps are,” said Kelly. Pain in the asphalt
William Goble, the city’s recently hired engineer, said last week that the roads in question were in their current condition due to several factors.
“A lot of road openings are done in that area to fix sewer connections,” Goble said. “Once that work is done, [workers] have to repair the trench that has been created, and they don’t necessarily do it correctly.”
Goble said employees of the city’s Public Works Department must fill the trench with soil and properly compact it to allow the asphalt to stabilize.
Goble also said that when water seeps into the cracks, it freezes and expands the surface. When salt is added to melt the ice on streets, it does what Goble described as “popping up the asphalt.”
And when cars drive over this expanded asphalt, it breaks, thus creating potholes.
But Goble had good news on the remedying the problem, smoothing over a bumpy situation. Paved with good intentions
Goble said that the next round of road paving in Jersey City will start taking place as soon as the end of March. “I can tell you that $3.7 million in road paving will take place in the spring and continue in the summer through the fall,” said Goble. “We already have a $1.5 million dollar project approved for paving Grand Street, and there’s other money that is available for other road projects.”
The roads near the Holland Tunnel and Hoboken will be paved, but since there are 12 miles of roads in Jersey City scheduled for improvement, Goble said that the streets will be given priority according to how often they are driven upon. Also, Goble said that much of the paving will be contracted out allowing for Public Works to catch up on other long overdue projects.
Maldonado, who represents the area where these roads are located, said that while he has not received many complaints on the condition of these streets, he has been negotiating with the New Jersey Department of Transportation and Port Authority of New York and New Jersey to help pave the roads since they are located in the vicinity of the Holland Tunnel. The tunnel is operated by Port Authority, and the NJDOT is working on a long-term rebuilding project involving the repair of the 12th and 14th street viaducts that lead in and out of the Holland Tunnel, which would result in drivers trying to avoid the construction and making their way down Jersey City streets.
The project is to be done in six stages with the rehabilitation of the 14th Street Viaduct starting first in February 2005 and ending by fall 2009. Ricardo Kaulessar can be reached at rkaulessar@hudsonreporter.com