Route 1 Planning Through Partnerships

The Route 1 corridor has been an economic engine for New Jersey for the last two decades. Considerable growth has been focused in the region, particularly from companies in the highly desirable financial and pharmaceutical sectors. This growth has been fueled by, and has demanded, both substantial road improvements to the region, as well as extensive new housing for the workforce — although the housing is frequently located in distant municipalities to the north, south, and west.

A recent build-out analysis commissioned by NJDOT indicates that future growth in the area is planned to include 13 new jobs for every new home. However, due to the difficulty of attracting employees to the region without additional housing choices, few believe that this growth is likely to happen. Ominously, many are concerned that the opposite may occur — existing employers moving out of the area due to housing and mobility challenges that seem intractable.

New Jersey Future interviewed representatives from each of the 14 municipalities, the three counties and the two Metropolitan Planning Organizations concentrated around the Route 1 corridor. The interviews uncovered a variety of obstacles to growth patterns that would parallel the objectives of the State Plan, including:

• Increasing traffic and lack of mobility caused by new development projects, regardless of the design or location;
• Resistance to housing, generated by concerns about school costs, density and traffic;
• Lack of regional coordination necessary to achieve projects that have components or effects that cross municipal boundaries;
• Need for state intervention or support for local decisions that advance statewide priorities;
• Need for compromise and action on complex transportation issues.

The interviews also generated a variety of policy recommendations to help achieve the strategy generally, and center-based growth specifically.

 

Download report:
Route 1 Planning Through Partnerships (PDF)