A Route 287 “missing link” that was connected 30 years ago shortened the trip to grandmother’s house for many residents in this region.
The missing section of interstate highway was in the making for 40 years before it opened Nov. 19, 1993.
Officials at the opening ceremony in Wanaque noted that the new road section was ready for drivers to travel to Thanksgiving celebrations.
The 20.6-mile “missing link” from Route 202 in Montville to Route 17 in Mahwah was the last major segment built in an interstate loop around New York City.
A section connecting Mahwah to the New York Thruway was completed in 1994.
The new road was expected to reduce traffic on routes 17 and 23 while possibly adding volume to Route 208.
The opening of the $1 billion federally funded link marked the conclusion of a long environmental, planning and design saga.
It was nearly the last step in the completion of a road conceived in the 1950s as a bypass around New York City.
State officials had announced in July 1993 that construction would speed up so the project would be completed by November.
After an agreement with the Federal Highway Administration to provide the state with $5 million to cover overtime for construction crews, all that remained to be resolved were environmental issues with the Army Corps of Engineers.
At the 11th hour, the Corps reached an agreement on a timetable to replace wetlands destroyed during construction, paving the way for the highway link opening.
The Corps agreed to modify a federal permit by allowing the state Department of Transportation to replace the wetlands on a timetable. Originally, the Corps had stipulated that the road could not open until about 70 acres of destroyed wetlands were replaced with sites in Bloomingdale, Mahwah and Wayne.
If they had followed the original conditions, it would have been another two years before the highway could open. As a party to the agreement, the state tested the quality of surface water runoff from the highway at 22 locations for three years after the opening.
For thousands of North Jersey motorists, whose morning and evening rituals had been defined by sitting in traffic on highways that much earlier reached their capacities, the opening of the link was a transportation event of great proportion.