Jersey has always seemed to be the topic of many “state” related jokes. I once thought it was because those of us in the Northeast needed a state to pick on – that maybe it wasn’t as bad as everyone seemed to make it out to be. The pot shots at toxic waste, oil refineries, and other such industrial scars couldn’t all be true. The Sopranos are “from” there, after all – who doesn’t like Tony, besides the FBI? Granted the women are known some how maintaining the big Texas style, Aquanet enhanced hairstyles, but not all the jokes can be true. Having spend about ten hours in the Garden State, I’m inclined to believe anything bad, that someone says about NJ. After all, and I’ve said this before, a cliche becomes a cliche for a reason.

What the fuck is wrong with the roads in New Jersey?

Why the change of heart? A few days ago, I figure that if someone told me that the heads of the DOT of NJ for the last few decades were actually Japan shogun descendants prepping the state for a war-type defense from their surrounding states, I would have told you that you were insane. If you told me that Ray Charles had a job in the 60’s designing the highways within in NJ, I wouldn’t have believed it. Well… amazing how one small little drive to the Arena at the Meadowlands can change your mind. I would believe both of those things without hesitation if you told me that today. There’s no possible way that any rational, breathing human being could be responsible for the roads in NJ. It’s not possible. Even a child with an Etch-A-Sketch could have designed a better highway system.

What the hell happened? It’s simple. Living in Connecticut, the easiest way to the Continental Airlines Arena is via the George Washington Bridge. No problem finding that – it’s part of Interstate 95. Actually, I know a number of people that have gone over it rather by accident, missing the 1C exit for Yankee Stadium. Anyway, so you take i-95. After you cross the bridge, you’ll see exits 70 and 69 and a junction for i-80. Things are ok, right? Sure. To get to the Meadowlands Complex, you want to take the NJ Turnpike to exit 16W. The NJ Turnpike is a shoot off of i-95. The first Exit on the NJ Tpke is exit 18, running to exit 1. So this all sounds normal, right? Another great landmark for the Meadowlands is the Vince Lombardi Rest Area – so everything should be A-OK at this point.

This is where the nightmare begins. In NJ you are either given so many signs that you don’t know which one to read or follow first (because they contradict themselves sometimes) or you’re left with a small 3×3 foot sign that if you blink, you will miss it. There’s no middle ground. As soon as you get on the Tpke, you will see two huge signs for 17 and 16W. You need to ignore these. On my last trip to the Arena, I took the first 16W sign I saw – that was a mistake. See, this was not the 16W I wanted. How do I know this? Because I took it once and got screwed for it; also NJ residents will say “Oh, you didn’t want that one!” So here’s issue number one: How many 16W exits are there on the same highway? And yes it is the same highway – I looked it up. This is just an “extra” 16W.

Moving along from here, you’re now on the Tpke, assuming you’ve ignored all the signs up till now. Now you’re presented with a spur question. Yes for whatever reason, there’s two different parts to this highway – one local and one express. This is supposed to help with traffic, I ‘spose, but watching both spurs they all seemed to have the same exits – whatever. I’ll give them points for trying to help a traffic problem, but frankly I think they accidentally built two highways and someone covered with an “express” sign.

You drive down the Tpke a bit. You say ooOoooO – rest area. So you go to the Vince Lombardi Rest Area. This is your second tragic mistake. See, just before the rest area, you will see three signs for 16W. One in the Express spur on the left, one on the Local spur and one that seems to go no where. And that’s if you notice them at all because are rather on the small side. But that’s ok, because you want to go use the pisciadu, what with the traffic on 95 in NY – so you stop at ol’ Vince. Vince has it’s own issues. Since it’s accessible from both directions, you have to get off the highway on a roundabout and that would be ok, were it not for the six entrance lanes that lead to it. Of course, if you don’t exit the Vince the “right way” you will be deposited back on the Tpke, still heading southbound, but past your beloved after exit 16W, being further south on the Tpke.

Let’s say you do that – accidentally go the “wrong” way – you get back on the Tpke, still heading southbound, but you “miss” the non-marked sign for the “right” way, and you start driving. The next exit? 17. Yes – the exits run 18, 16W, 17, 15A/B. Where’s 16E? Who knows. Why are they out of order? No one knows, but NJ residents just seem to smugly say “oh, you missed the exit then”. What the shit is that?! Their exit order looks like a Fibonacci series from a computer class. And of course, if you end up doing this, you won’t realize what’s wrong until you hit Newark at exit 15A.

Having done all of the above – and I say it without shame as I am not to blame for it, for a change – I’m not sure how anyone from south Jersey can ever get to the Arena. From Newark, I went back up the Tpke and there was no exit 16 of any kind, A B W E or otherwise. Got to exit 70 on 95 and did another u-turn to head back down the southbound spurs. I’m at a loss, actually, because I was obviously even more attentive on the ride northbound, since this was the second attempt and I dare not be late for the event at the Arena.

I would even go as far as to say that this was an isolated incident – that maybe this was a one time highway pooch-screw and that the rest of the state is OK. Hah – caught me joking. A good friend of mine is from the central NJ – over the last 6 years, the directions to her parents’ house have changed. Why? Exits have either moved, been closed, or just got re-numbered. They closed some HOV lanes. They’ve done some other things, too, but what the hell is that? I swear the whole debacle is a Skinner Box type experiment for the masses, or they want to keep “outsiders” out of NJ. Like there will be a huge migration to their state anytime soon – even Atlantic City isn’t worth this much pain.

The NJ highway system is a huge and painful fuck up, second only to the Big Dig in Boston – at least Boston’s issues are contained to one city, although Route 9 is suspect in some parts of MA. NJ has statewide issues. And take it from someone that has driven in at least 20 different states – this is a huge fuck up. Even the Californian freeways, with their lack of exit numbers (they treat all exits by name, at least in northern CA) doesn’t make a mess of itself like NJ does. At least the time at the Arena was good – more on that on the Music page tomorrow.