Parkway Exit Southbound At 83 Focus Of Session

Just when you thought the Garden State Parkway construction between Toms River and Brick Township was nearly complete, another project is in the wings.

A public information session Tuesday at the Ocean County Library in Toms River will be held on a proposed project that would expand the partial interchange at 83 to a full interchange. The meeting is being hosted by officials from Ocean County in cooperation with the North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority, the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration.

The project, according to information posted on the Toms River Township website, would add a southbound exit ramp at 83. Currently, motorists can get on Parkway northbound and southbound at the interchange in the area of Route 166/Route 9 and Route 571/Indian Hill Road, and can exit the northbound lanes of the Parkway there.

But southbound motorists must go to exit 82 before they are able to exit the Parkway, forcing those who live in the central part of Toms River to either get off the Parkway in Brick at Exit 89 and travel through Brick and Lakewood on Route 70 to New Hampshire Avenue or down Hooper Avenue to reach their homes, or exit at 82 -- and fight through traffic on Route 37 and the jughandles at Route 166 or Hooper Avenue to go north.

The addition of the southbound ramp is expected to reduce congestion at the other two exits.

“Each of the available routes for local traffic including US 9, Hooper Avenue (CR 549), and New Hampshire Avenue (CR 623) currently exhibit congestion during the critical evening peak hour,” notes information posted on the township’s website, announcing the meeting. “By the year 2030, each of these routes are forecast to have one or more links with volume to capacity ratios in excess of 1.0, which is indicative of unsatisfactory operating conditions.”

The information session is Tuesday, June 30, from 4-7 p.m. in the Mancini Room at the main branch of the library, on Washington Street in downtown Toms River. You can look at information on the project by clicking here.