New Jerseyans meeting for the first time are apt to ask each other, “What’s your exit?” They refer, of course, to the New Jersey turnpike, one of the most heavily travelled highways in America and the vital link between the communities in the state. When the turnpike opened in 1951, it provided a quick way to travel from north to south within the state and easy access to major urban centers along the east coast. “The Turnpike”, as it is known locally, is famous for its rest areas, which are named for prominent citizens including Thomas Edison, Walt Whitman, Woodrow Wilson, and football coach Vince Lombardi.
The nation’s most densely populous state, New Jersey also boasts of the highest annual median household income in America at $55,146. Major economic players in the Garden State include the pharmaceutical, chemical development, telecommunications, electric equipment, and food processing industries. The Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal is one of the largest container ports in the world and is a focus of New Jersey’s strong shipping industry. 24 Fortune 500 companies call the state home and several New Jersey counties are among the nation’s leaders in residents’ income.
Roads
Interstate 95: On its route from Florida to Maine, I-95 spends 77 of its nearly 2,000 miles in the state of New Jersey where it largely follows the main route of the New Jersey Turnpike including the pike’s northern continuation to the George Washington Bridge that links New Jersey with Manhattan.
Interstate 295: Running parallel with the New Jersey turnpike for most of its time in the state, I-295 provides a bypass route from a junction with I-95 in Wilmington, Delaware to another in Trenton, New Jersey.
Interstate 76: I-76 runs from Ohio to New Jersey where it enters at the Walt Whitman Bridge. I-76 ends at 1-295 (see above), but its route continues via the Atlantic City Expressway into Atlantic City.
Interstate 195: Contained entirely within the state of New Jersey, I-195 is a 34-mile auxiliary route running from Trenton to Wall Township.
Interstate 287: Serving northern New Jersey as a Beltway around Manhattan, I-287 is a horseshoe-shaped route sometimes referred to as the Middlesex Freeway.
Interstate 80: Spanning America’s east-west girth from San Francisco to New York, I-80 is a behemoth that spends just 68 miles in New Jersey from the Delaware Water Gap to Teaneck.
Interstate 78: Known in New Jersey as the Phillipsburg-Newark Expressway and the Newark Bay Extension, I-78 spends 66 miles in the state spanning the gap from the Pennsylvania state line to the Holland Tunnel, which links New Jersey and Manhattan.